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Exclusive: Facebook privacy rules to change

By Benjamin Cohen

Updated on 18 May 2010

The social-networking site Facebook is expected to make changes to its controversial privacy policy within days, Channel 4 News has learned.

Facebook sign in page

The move follows criticism from the European Union and a prominent US senator.

Facebook last year changed the default privacy settings of millions of its users, and since the end of last month external websites have been able to gain access and republish Facebook data.

This has led to a website called OpenBook, where it is possible to view the Facebook status updates of millions of users.

US senator Charles Schumer criticised the changes saying: "Now all of sudden with rules changing there are lots of things that you may have never wanted to go beyond your family and friends but do. This opt out procedure is confusing, unclear, and you might even say hidden."

While Facebook was also criticised by the European Union’s privacy watchdog, the Article 29 Working Party, last week over the changes Facebook made to its privacy settings.

"It is unacceptable that the company fundamentally changed the default settings on its social-networking platform to the detriment of a user," said a statement from the Working Party.

I have spoken to senior sources at the company and I understand that within the next few days they are expected to acknowledge, and say they understand, some of the criticisms levelled against them.

Facebook clearly realise that not everyone understands the 50 privacy settings and 170 privacy options that users are currently presented with. They seem to be confusing users, and not everyone has realised that their status updates are so public.

Indeed, one of the sources say they welcome websites like OpenBook which are effectively informing and warning users about how private their information is or is not.

The company are still in discussions internally about how best to implement new changes, but it is clear that some simplification will occur soon. There was talk of big privacy options that change scores of privacy settings rather than having to set them individually.

Facebook as a company are refreshing in their ability to actually respond to criticism. They do not shy away from it as other technology giants have a tendency to do.

They are still genuinely taken by surprise at the way that people use Facebook and more importantly the information they upload.

Users are their lifeblood, if they upset them then they risk their whole future existence. They've realised that there’s unease and they will change things.

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