Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg today announced the internet social network will roll out new settings for its more than 400 million users amid privacy concerns.
From today the site has redesigned the privacy settings page to be simpler and allows users one control for sharing content with friends, friends of friends or everyone. The corresponding settings will then be immediately applied and displayed in a new grid format.
The company said it will “significantly” reduce the amount of information that is always visible to everyone.
Users will also have more control over how applications and websites access personal information and will be able to completely turn off platform applications meaning information will not be shared.
Announcing the new settings on his official blog post today Mr Zuckerberg said the new presets will help the company understand the overall privacy level users are comfortable with.
He said: “As we roll out new products, we want to apply the right setting for you at the outset - eliminating the need for you to check your setting each time a new feature is introduced.”
“We’re committed to carrying over your presets for new products that facilitate sharing. So, if you choose the ‘Friends Only’ preset for ‘Sharing on Facebook’, new products that have privacy settings will be automatically set to ‘Friends Only’ as well.”
Mr Zuckerberg said the company will not be changing anything about its advertising programs and denied selling personal information.
He said: “There's a rumour that the more openly you share your information the more money we make, but it's just wrong. Advertisers may target ads to people according to certain demographics, but they receive only anonymous data reports.”
“We don’t share your personal information with our advertisers.”
The move comes a few weeks after Facebook, the world’s largest internet social network, unveiled several changes to its service that prompted sharp criticism from privacy advocates and spurred a few high-profile Facebook users, such as tech commentator Jason Calacanis, to delete their accounts in protest.
Analysts estimate that Facebook’s 2009 revenues range from $500 million (€400 million) to $650 million, primarily from selling online ads targeted at users based on their activity and profile information on Facebook.
Additional reporting Agencies
