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Facebook offers users more control over their privacy

December 9th, 2009 by Ken

When using social networks such as MySpace or Facebook, privacy is of paramount concern, with the details of your private life sensitive enough that you might want to restrict the availability of that information to those people you trust.

Today, Facebook unveiled a revamped privacy interface, affording its users even more control over how their information is filtered to those viewing their pages. With over 350 million users, making it the world’s largest social network, Facebook is hoping this gives its users more flexibility over how they’re able to manage what they share amongst the community.

Per Facebook, the new changes include:

• They’ve removed regional networks, finding that the various communities have become so large as to make its initial purpose inapplicable. Instead, users will be able to share information to friends, family, or publically.
• Users will have a tool that assists in setting up their privacy, though the default settings will automatically block that information which is particularly sensitive.
• No matter what the item you’re sharing, you will now be able to control who sees it, whether it’s loved ones or the public.

If you’re curious about what this means for your account, Facebook explains the changes in more detail here.

Related posts:

1. Facebook settling on Privacy lawsuit
2. Yahoo! and Facebook team up
3. Privacy Protection: What Privacy?
4. Facebook Chat is now available with all your IM clients!
5. The RockYou Database has been hacked (important if you use Facebook, etc.)

Tags: facebook, privacy, social networking