Facebook simplifies privacy settings, calls them too complex

Facebook will simplify the way in which it offers privacy options to its users, as it gets ready to give its members for the first time the option to make the content they post on their profiles available to anyone on the Internet.

Right now, Facebook privacy controls are too scattered across multiple settings pages and they lack uniformity, creating confusion among members, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly said Wednesday during a press conference.

This complexity prevents many members from taking full advantage of the very granular privacy controls that Facebook offers and that are one of the social-networking site's selling points.

"It's too complex at this point," Kelly said.

IDC analyst Caroline Dangson said that this is "absolutely true."

"The Facebook privacy settings aren't set up in an easy way for people to discover and understand their implications," she said.

If people don't feel they fully understand how to establish access settings to their profile content, they will not post and share as much as they would otherwise, Kelly said.

Consequently, Facebook will consolidate into one page all of its privacy settings and make the options more uniform, focused on five access levels: Everyone, which will eventually mean sharing with anyone, on or off Facebook; Friends and Networks, which means sharing with all friends on your list and with anyone on the same work or school network; Friends of Friends, which includes anyone who is a friend of one of your friends; only Friends; and Custom, in which a user manually hand-picks the people to share with.

Facebook will continue to allow members to set different privacy settings for specific sections of their profile and also for individual pieces of content, like a photograph, status updates, a Web link, a video clip or a text note.

The option to share with "Everyone" currently refers to anyone on Facebook, but will soon broaden its scope to anyone on the Internet, including people who aren't on the social-networking site. Facebook hasn't yet decided to what extent search engines like Google will be able to index the content tagged for "everyone."

This "Everyone" option is widely seen as Facebook's attempt to counter the popularity of Twitter, the micro-blogging site and social network that has experienced meteoric growth in the past year and which many see as a credible threat to Facebook.

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