Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Facebook unveils simpler new privacy controls



Well, the Facebook guys have unveiled their new privacy settings -- the simpler, more common-sense ones aimed at answering their many critics who accused them of trying to move too much personal information into the public realm.

Facebook heard, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement on the company's blog, and now Facebook is taking action. He rolled out a three-point plan. It says, in essence:

--There will be a single control to set who can see content you post. It will apply to new products Facebook launches going forward, so no need to have to figure all this out again. (Hallelujah!)

--They're reducing the amount of basic personal information that must be visible to everyone, and they're removing the connections privacy model, which automatically linked personal information like your hometown or work history or hobbies to other public pages on those subjects.

--They're creating an easy control to turn off all third-party applications. That includes turning off the "instant personalization" feature that stirred so much fuss. That would have allowed other sites, such as radio site Pandora, to look at your Facebook page and use your personal information (hobbies, habits, tastes) to customize its offerings to you.

Unless I missed it, one important thing the blog post doesn't seem to say: whether the most restrictive privacy settings will apply by default in all cases, allowing you to go to greater openness only if you so choose.

Without that, it would seem Facebook is leaving out one critical piece of the puzzle. Just my initial thoughts here. Read Zuckerberg's blog post and let me know what you think. Are they doing enough to satisfy your concerns?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

They need to have the default settings be that everything is the most restrictive private setting possible and then you can "opt in" to other settings.

Anonymous said...

It's a business whose purpose is to make money. They're going to default your settings to whatever makes them the most money. And that setting is for you to be as visible as possible so more people can find you.

Thomas said...

several months ago, while trying to find my way through complicated facebook privacy controls, I accidentally deleted my email address (in an attempt to hide it) and now I can not log on to my facebook account anymore!! NOBODY seems to know how to fix this problem, but I know this has also happened to my room mate... we cant be the only ones who have incurred this issue, right?? Does anybody know how to fix it??? facebook has been no help in this matter....

Anonymous said...

I have a great idea, Eric.

Why don't you write something about Facebook?

You haven't written anything about them in a while.

Anonymous said...

Wow, is it your job to write stuff about Facebook? They pay you a living wage for this?

ThaQueenCity said...

Thanks Eric! I appreciate all the work you put into helping some us who are not as computer savy deal with all these personal control issues! Keep up the great work!

Anonymous said...

The CIA still monitors it like they would introduce controls and security that they could not undermine themselves. Come on people. Wake up. It's not just Big Brother anymore. It's an entire Big Family of the government snooping for anything they can find to classify you as an enemy combatant so they can lock you up and throw away the key for trying to wake up your fellow human beings and save them from the Zionist's global agenda.

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