On Wednesday this week, Facebook announced that it has modified its user controls to make it easier to configure privacy settings and to retroactively control access to content that has already been posted.
The company also said that it has “drastically reduced the amount of information that is available to everyone.”
This is in direct response to the widespread criticism it received following its privacy updates in April.
The major highlights are:
New Privacy Control Centre – ‘one click’ control making it easier to limit access to friends, friends of friends or everyone. Your personal profile privacy settings are easier to understand with everything displayed in a single grid.
Less Mandatory Public Information – This was a major concern and has been largely addressed.
Turn-off Apps and Instant Personalisation - This effectively stops Facebook automatically sharing personal information with Applications within Facebook or external third party services, without explicit approval.
The user feedback to these changes has been largely positive, although some civil liberties groups would have liked them to go further.
The challenge for Facebook is that they still need to use user data to help monetise the service through advertising, but must be seen to do so without compromising individual’s privacy by sharing that data with third parties.
