Zuckerberg defends Facebook against privacy complaints

PEOPLE PERSON Mark Zuckerberg has attempted to justify Facebook's sometimes colourful personal privacy record with a television appearance and the suggestion that other firms are much worse.

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg and the firm's COO Sheryl Sandberg were on the Charlie Rose TV show in the US last night and used their screen time to paint a very cosy picture of the company. They suggested that it covers the internet like a blanket and acts as a warm and fuzzy, friendly base for movie and music sharing as well as casual socialising.

"People like to talk about war, but there are lots of ways that companies work together," said Zuckerberg. Yet not all firms are created equal. Google, he claimed, is "more competitive than Facebook", adding, "Facebook has evolved as a partnership company."

Of course, Facebook privacy and security issues came up, and here Zuckerberg said that rather than look at his firm, critics should take a look at the competition.

"If you look at companies, whether it's Google or Yahoo or Microsoft, that have search engines and ad networks, they also have a huge amount of information about you," he said, according to a report at the technology, bikinis and diets web site of the Daily Mail.

"It's just that they're collecting that about you behind your back... they're collecting this huge amount of information about who you are. But you never know that."

Facebook comes in for the most criticism, said Zuckerberg, because it is the most open about its privacy settings, which was something that confused us. Perhaps by 'open' he meant that Facebook's privacy settings are the most discussed.

"People have little or no control over the information that a company like Google or Yahoo or Microsoft has about you," he explained.

"I think that these companies with those big ad networks are basically getting away with collecting huge amounts of information, likely way more information than people are sharing on Facebook." µ