Facebook changes privacy settings

GIGANTIC PEOPLE DATABASE Facebook has made a slight change to its privacy settings, but typically it could have done better.

The firm made the changes yesterday and almost instantly won the criticism of Sophos, where 'Inspector' Graham Cluley said that it missed an "opportunity to do so much more".

For Facebook though, it was a good move and involved a range of tweaks to photo tagging and uploading.

"Today we're announcing a bunch of improvements that make it easier to share posts, photos, tags and other content with exactly the people you want. You have told us that 'who can see this?' could be clearer across Facebook, so we have made changes to make this more visual and straightforward," said Facebook VP of Product Chris Cox.

"Your profile should feel like your home on the web - you should never feel like stuff appears there that you don't want, and you should never wonder who sees what's there. The profile is getting some new tools that give you clearer, more consistent controls over how photos and posts get added to it, and who can see everything that lives there."

The problem with Facebook and the changes that it makes are the fact that users often do not know who can see what and where and have to lock down their accounts to stop unfortunate leakage.

Cluley welcomed the work so far, adding that Facebook had made some good efforts to simplify its settings.

"It sounds like Facebook has made efforts to simplify the way its privacy settings work, and make it more obvious to its users how their information is being shared," he explained, before adding that perhaps the changes might have been influenced by some new competition.

"Although they've denied it, there can't be any doubt that the launch of Google+ may have influenced some of the design decisions here," he said, before adding that it was perhaps too early to say how good the changes are.

"We'll have to wait until the controls are live on Facebook users' accounts before we can give them a gold star, but from the sound of things Facebook deserves some credit for the revamp."

Not too much though, Facebook still has a lot of changes to make before it gets a real Sophos seal of approval, if it wants one, that is.

"However, Facebook doesn't seem to have really addressed the more fundamental privacy issues on the site," added the security expert.

"Facebook, unfortunately, has time and time again eroded privacy introducing new features which share additional information about their users, assuming they want the featured turned on," he explained.

"Although I'm pleased to see what appears to be Facebook simplifying its privacy settings, and making them more visible, it has missed an opportunity to lead the way on privacy." µ