With all the attention Facebook is getting over privacy, you’d think the social-networking giant was springing as many leaks as BP. While not that dire, Facebook privacy settings have been an oily mess. Even CEO Mark Zuckerberg conceded they needed to be a whole lot simpler.
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I’ve been digging into the new privacy settings Facebook is rolling out to address the issues. The basic promise is that you can control a swath of privacy settings with a single click, though you can fine-tune. Facebook also reduced the info that can be seen by anyone on the Internet. It made it simpler to turn off applications and Web sites you’re no longer interested in.
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Not everyone is satisfied. While approving of Facebook’s direction, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, told me in an e-mail that users are still very frustrated. The larger lesson is that we can’t rely on Facebook to decide for the users how much privacy there will be.
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The issues have been anything but simple. Facebook members — approaching a half-billion globally — are encouraged to openly disclose personal information. It is what fuels the social in social networking and helps you make new friends or reconnect with old ones.
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Of course, the more detailed the data that you do choose to share — political beliefs, hobbies, religious practices, past and present affiliations — the more you’re helping Facebook make money. Marketers can target ads to specific groups, tailoring an ad, say, to all members in Chicago who love hockey’s Blackhawks. The ads are anonymous: Zuckerberg insists Facebook doesn’t share any of your personal information with advertisers.
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Facebook’s challenge is to convince the public that the good vastly outweighs the bad — which I believe it does. A recent bug, since fixed, that under certain circumstances would…