Monthly Archives: May 2010

On Wednesday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a series of forthcoming changes to the site’s privacy settings, designed to simplify the process of setting privacy controls. The changes follow a growing public backlash against Facebook’s current privacy policies, which require users to set about 150 different privacy controls.

While the changes will roll out gradually over the next few weeks, here’s what you can expect to see:

One master control. In December, Facebook rolled out granular controls that allowed users to customize their privacy settings for each type of content. While they gave users greater control over the information they shared, many users found them difficult to manage and were uncertain of what exactly they were sharing with the public. Users will still have access to these customizable controls, but will also have the option to change all privacy settings with just one click.

Private friend lists and pages. Users will now have the option of controlling who can see their friends and pages. By requiring less of this basic information to be public, Facebook gives users greater control over their privacy settings. The downside is that this will make it more difficult to find certain users’ profiles.

Easy opt-out from third-party sites. As Facebook continues to expand their reach to applications, games and partner sites, users will be able to opt out of sharing their information with all third-party sites with one click. On sites like Pandora, Yelp and CNN.com, which automatically connect to users’ Facebook accounts, users will be able to turn off this “instant personalization” feature directly on those sites.

These are just the first of many changes to the way Facebook approaches privacy and user control issues. After a bit of bad press and an FTC complaint, the Facebook team admitted that they “missed the mark” in their last round of privacy updates, and they’re now working to overhaul their entire privacy set-up. In the meantime, they released a revamped privacy guide designed to help users understand their new privacy options once they take effect. Users will also have the opportunity to change privacy settings on past status updates.

Do you think these changes are necessary? How will they change the way users connect through Facebook? What other changes would you like to see to Facebook’s privacy controls?