The changes to be introduced this week will be beta Publisher Privacy Control, tested by 40,000 Facebook members, who will give feedback for six different versions of the Transition Tool before privacy settings are made available for public use
In the process of streamlining, Facebook will be reducing six privacy pages to one and introducing a Transition Tool, facilitating users to select their own privacy levels for the content they publish, and thus giving them the ability to determine who has access to their personal information.
Included in the changes to be introduced this week will be beta Publisher Privacy Control, tested by 40,000 Facebook members, who will give feedback for six different versions of the Transition Tool before privacy settings are made available for public use.
In a company blog post, Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, stated, "We think Facebook is most useful when people can find and connect with each other, which is why this tool will enable you to make available those parts of your profile that you feel comfortable sharing in order to facilitate better connection.”
"You will have the choice of being as open or as limited in the sharing of this information as you want," Kelly added.
Need for overhauling
Presently, privacy settings are spread across several pages, lacking consistency, and creating confusion and misunderstanding among the users. "It's too complex at this point," Kelly said.
IDC analyst Caroline Dangson agreed, saying that it is "absolutely true".
"The Facebook privacy settings aren't set up in an easy way for people to discover and understand their implications," she added.
Privacy questioned
Though Facebook is anticipating that its revamped privacy settings will allow users to control information, the blogosphere has raised doubts whether privacy settings will prove efficient or add to the already intricate network.
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