Facebook introduces new privacy controls

27.05.2010

New and simplified methods for controlling personal information will be introduced during the next few weeks.

by Rune H. Rasmussen

Answering to intense criticism from users and formal complaints from privacy groups claiming that privacy settings has become too complicated, the giant social network has developed a simplified method for controlling personal information .

Simpler settings
The new system, unveiled by Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, will offer users one privacy settings page with a list of all their applications and three basic settings; share data with everyone, "friends of friends" or "friends only". In addition, users are offered a “recommended” setting – which shares certain information, such as family information, with everyone, but photos and videos only with friends of friends. People who want more specific settings will still be able to access the existing system.

The amount of information that is visible to everyone has also been reduced. Users will now be able to control who sees their interest pages and friends lists, and they have the possibility to turn off applications to ensure no information is shared without consent.

"We've focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications," said Mark Zuckerberg, speaking at Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters.

"People think that we don't care about privacy, but that's not true," Zuckerberg said. "There's a balance. More and more people want to share information, and as long as they have good controls over that, I think that's where the world is going."

Zuckerberg admitted that the recent criticism of Facebook’s complex privacy settings had hit home and that the changes are a result of these.

No information is sold to advertisers
He also insisted that no user information is sold to advertisers:

"The principle is that we don't give any information to advertisers. We target the ads to people ourselves. Advertisers come to us with adverts that they want shown to particular [groups of] people, and we take the ad and show it to the person that we think will be interested in that information. So it doesn't matter who you're showing your data to. It doesn't matter whether you share it at all."

Still issues
However, several experts and analysts question whether the changes are sufficient.

"The vast majority of people don't use privacy settings so the reforms are not likely to have as great an impact," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, to BBC News.

With European privacy commissioners calling for companies to set defaults for the minimum sharing of information, the big battle could be "yet to come", he warned.