Facebook privacy changes cause outcry

Social network Facebook is facing criticism for recent changes to its privacy settings.

Last week, founder Mark Zuckerberg explained that, among other things, Facebook was going to get rid of the regional networks in an attempt to improve privacy.

However, other changes have been made prior to a deal being put in place with Google to include status updates in Google's real-time search facility.

Other information including your name, profile photograph, friends and location is also publicly available now.

"A limited set of basic information that helps your friends find you will be made publicly available. This information is name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list and Pages," said Ruchi Sanghvi, Facebook's product manager for privacy.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said that although some of the changes were positive, others actually reduced the privacy of members.

"We're glad to see Facebook is attempting to respond to privacy criticisms with these changes," the EFF said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, several of the claimed privacy 'improvements' have created new and serious privacy problems for users of the popular social-network service," it continued.

The EFF said the changes would reduce the control that an individual had over some data and that Facebook was pushing members to make more of their information publicly available.

"More online speech is a good thing. But to ensure that users don't accidentally share more than they intend to, we do not recommend Facebook's 'recommended' settings," the EFF said.

Many Facebook members expressed displeasure at the changes.

"The new privacy settings just opened up my friends list and fan pages to the world. I'll be spending a lot less time on Facebook and sharing nothing until we get our privacy back," one member wrote.

"The new tools suck! You took away our ability to hide our friends list and what pages/groups we are a fan of/belong to! How is that improved privacy? Give us that functionality back or bring back the old tools!" wrote another.


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