Facebook simplifies privacy but continues exposing users

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Facebook was praised for simplifying its privacy controls on Wednesday, but critics say the moves fail to restore users’ trust in the appropriate handling of their information.The social network unveiled a greatly simplified interface for controlling user privacy settings, hosted on a single page. The previous set-up, featuring a bewildering array of 50 privacy settings and 170 privacy options, is to be phased out as the new controls are put in place.

Facebook has also backed away from insisting users need to share their friends list and pages with the world at large, effectively undoing controversial changes made last December. Lastly there are new options to block all applications and websites, and opt-out of Instant Personalization. However users who opt-out of applications and the entire Facebook platform will be unable to play games, a major downside. Users are still being pushed to share information by default – the site still forces users to opt out of features they dislike rather than creating compelling reasons for users to opt in.

The privacy activists argue that Facebook’s business model relies on monetising data harvested from customers. This runs counter to claims by chief exec Mark Zuckerberg at a press conference on Wednesday that the extent to which people shared or restricted data they posted on the site had little effect on ad revenue.