Facebook will roll out new, simpler privacy controls today, after criticism of its latest privacy settings by users, governments and privacy groups, including New Zealand's Privacy Commissioner.
The site started a slow roll-out of the changes today and will gradually increase the number of people with access to the new controls. This process is expected to be completed in the next couple of weeks.
The social networking site, with more than 400 million users worldwide, recently changed its privacy settings to share personal information with third parties and launched an "Instant Personalisation Pilot Programme" which shared personal information with external websites to tailor browsing experiences.
Users were not alerted to the new settings, which were made public by default, and had to opt out of them line-by-line to control their privacy settings, Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff said yesterday.
She said the Privacy Commission was liaising with overseas privacy regulators about Facebook's privacy issues.
Facebook yesterday announced it would introduce "drastically simplified" tools for privacy controls today, Businessweek.com reported.
At a New York technology conference, Facebook's product vice president Chris Cox said the past few weeks had been "extremely humbling".
The company would announce the next privacy changes at 5.30pm tomorrow New Zealand time, he said.
Users protesting Facebook's recent changes had organised a Quit Facebook Day for May 31, with more than 16,000 people pledging to close their accounts on that day.
More than a dozen privacy groups filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission earlier this month asking for an investigation into the website's privacy practices, Businessweek.com reported.
The New York Times reported that to opt out of full disclosure of most information, it was necessary to click through more than 50 privacy buttons, and a total of more than 170 privacy options.
Ms Shroff recommended New Zealanders unsure about their privacy settings to set all Facebook settings to 'private' and then choose what they want to open up.
New Zealanders concerned about Facebook could share their views with the Privacy Commission via enquiries@privacy.org.nz or with Facebook at www.facebook.com/fbsitegovernance.
