Facebook’s New Privacy Settings

After weathering a storm of criticism on their privacy policies, Facebook last week announced that they would introduce simpler privacy controls and settings. This morning when I logged into my Facebook account I was greeted by a notification that the changes were now live and that I could “control what I share.”

I took a look at the new settings and controls this morning and I must say that overall they are in fact simpler, easier to understand and far more user-friendly. It’s no longer a complicated guessing game about who you share your information with and what information you share. Here are some things I found beneficial and interesting about the new Facebook privacy settings:

• The chart that shows your current privacy settings is very clear. With a quick glance you can instantly know what information you are sharing with friends, friends of friends and everyone. It would be great if you could use this chart to change your settings with a quick click, but you have to go to “customize settings” to do this. Still, the chart is clear and very helpful – it takes away a lot of the guessing. Facebook also shows you its recommended settings. I would however encourage people to be a bit more conservative in what you share than what Facebook suggests!
• The applications and websites privacy settings are an improvement. This was probably the area that confused me the most. What advertisers, websites and stupid game applications were accessing my info? It’s now much easier to control this. This area is still a bit fuzzy for me though. When your friends use an application, Facebook encourages you to share a lot of information. With so many applications out there, it’s hard to predict how this information will be used. I would recommend keeping what you share with applications to a minimum – or turning off sharing completely, but I think this may shut you off to some cool sharing innovations that are on the horizon.
• You can now also see what applications are already accessing your information. I was shocked to see that there were 37 accessing my information, including such random things as HugMe, Catbox, Zoosk, Office Poke and Love Hearts. Thankfully, with the new settings, it was easy to delete these.
• Also in the applications area, you have the option to hide yourself from public search. In a public search, people can only see the information you share with everyone, but they can still find you. If you want to stay completely within your network of friends, turn this option off, but it would make you hard for new people you meet to find you even if you are interested in connecting with them online.
• You can now also control privacy each time you post to your page. When you post a status update or share a link to your blog, you can choose to let it be visible to just friends, to friends of friends or to everyone on a case-by-case basis. This is a nice change because there is certainly a wide range of things people post. For example, when I share an article I think is important, I would ok with friends of friends seeing this post, but when I share travel plans in a status update, I only want my friends to be able to see it.

One area that will eventually need more explanation is the “instant personalization” feature, where websites that partner with Facebook, such as Pandora and Yelp, have access to your information to create personalized experiences. I am actually a fan of this overall. I love that Pandora can figure out what artists I like based on what I say in Facebook, but this does have the potential to go too far.

Definitely take a look at the new privacy controls and settings (go to Account, then Privacy Settings in the upper right corner). With the new format you should find it easier to control what information people are able to access about you. They are not perfect, but it does seem as though Facebook did listen to its users and respond in a positive way. Let me know your thoughts.