By Maija Palmer and Tim Bradshaw in London and David Gelles in San Francisco, published on December 11, 2009
FACEBOOK has been forced to retreat on some changes to its privacy settings after the move created an outcry from data protection campaigners and left users confused and irate.
The social networking site rolled out simplified privacy controls to its 350m users this week, but faced a barrage of complaints that the new settings were leading users to reveal more information than they wanted to.
Users were particularly critical of the way Facebook opted to make “friend lists” – the catalogue of all the people users are connected to on the site – visible to the public.
Facebook quickly backtracked on that on Thursday night, allowing users to hide the information if they wished.
Richard Alan, Facebook’s director of policy for Europe, would not rule out further tweaks to the settings in response to the public outcry.
“We have people monitoring comments from blog posts and all the feedback is going back to the team. They are still looking at it,” he said.
This is the latest privacy controversy for Facebook, which was forced to scrap a targeted advertising programme in 2007 and which came under scrutiny by the Canadian Privacy Commission last summer.
The Facebook blog page was flooded with thousands of comments asking how to put the new privacy settings to work.
“I was very confused by the new privacy settings on Facebook,” said Megan Brown, a lawyer in New York City. “When I logged on, it asked me whether I wanted my old settings or new settings. I didn’t know what the old settings were, so I was unable to make an informed decision.”
Chris Applegate, a Cambridge computer science graduate who works at We Are Social, an agency dispensing advice about sites such as Facebook, was dismayed to discover that applications installed by his friends could see his data unless he chose to opt out, an option not given in Facebook’s latest reminder.
“I’ve always kept a tight rein on the apps I install. But it only takes one friend to install a malicious app and . . . my information is compromised,” he said. “There is a great potential for leakage.”
Several protest groups have been formed on the site, with titles such as “Stop Facebook from exposing our privacy. Restore security now!” and “We want the old privacy settings back!!”
Facebook insisted the change enhanced rather than detracted from privacy. It said that previously only 15-20 per cent of users had made any adjustments to their privacy settings. Yet, following the roll-out this week, 50 per cent of users had made changes.
“Millions [of users] have picked new settings and are comfortable with it,” Mr Alan said.
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