Facebook Promises to Clean Up Its Privacy

In response to sustained criticism of its privacy policies, Facebook says it will simplify the settings in the next few weeks – following a similar promise from rival site MySpace.

The recent outcry about user privacy prompted Tim Sparapani, Facebook’s director of public policy, to announce moves to “simplify” the site’s privacy settings, during a radio interview (listen here at the 26:30 mark) on the Kojo Nnamdi US public radio show on American University Radio, WAMU 88.5 FM.

Settings are too complex?

“Now, we’ve heard from our users that we’ve gotten a little bit complex,” Sparapani (below) said. “I think we’re going to work on that. I think we’re going to be providing options for people who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from, and I think we’ll see that in the next couple of weeks because we do listen to our users.”

The changes follow a similar move announced by MySpace earlier this week. Under the new policy, MySpace users can make information available to friends only, anyone on MySpace or anyone 18 or older in and outside the site. Those already using the friends-only option on portions of their profiles will have that setting become the default for all their information.

Sparapani did not say exactly how Facebook’s controls would be streamlined. But with the social networking site increasingly under siege by critics, which include the US authorities, he defended the company’s approach to privacy.

“Over our history as a company we have built a privacy setting for every new type of communication and sharing that we’ve allowed people to have,” he said. “What that means is that in fact we have come up with an extraordinary number of privacy settings. Now, I should note that this should be compared to any other company out there where there are almost no privacy settings at all. So Facebook should be getting credit here for giving tools in the first place.”

Earlier this month, Facebook fixed a flaw that exposed user chats to other users. The company has also faced specific criticism for its “instant personalisation tool” which exposes user information to third parties.

Interestingly, before moving to Facebook, Sparapani was senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Unioin (ACLU), an organisation which works to protect privacy, following an earlier spate of criticism of Facebook.

Additional reporting by Peter Judge.

Read: Ten things to remember about Facebook privacy