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Facebook beefs up privacy
19/03/2008 07:14 - (SA)
San Francisco - Facebook said on Tuesday it is giving users more control over who gets to see personal information posted in profiles at the social networking website.
Privacy updates to be available by Wednesday include letting Facebook users categorise friends into lists, with access to profile information determined by which list someone is on.
Prior to the change, any friend granted access to a Facebook profile could see anything posted there. People were left to choose between denying certain friends access to their profiles and censoring website postings.
Facebook's more than 68 million active users will also be able to give "friends of friends" automatic access to their profile pages.
The privacy enhancements come as Facebook rolls out French, German and Spanish language versions to win more users outside US borders and works to regain the trust of members irked by its "Beacon" advertising platform.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologised online in December to members for "mistakes" made implementing the ad platform and gave them a way to switch it off.
Facebook changed its Beacon advertising platform to an opt-in system to soothe members outraged by what they saw as an assault on their privacy.
Beacon lets "partners" track Facebook members' visits to their websites and relay messages letting users' friends in the social networking community know what they bought in a tactic referred to as "trusted referral" advertising.
Originally members were fodder for the ad platform if they did not exert the effort to "opt-out."
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