Facebook simplifies its privacy setting

NEW YORK

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talking about the site's new privacy settings -AP

New York: Facebook simpified its privacy controls on Wednesday, but critics were not impressed. The social networking site unveiled a new interface to control user privacy settings, on one page. Previously, there were 50 privacy setting and 170 privacy options.

Facebook will not insist that you share your friends list and pages with everyone, undoing last December's controversial changes. There are options to block all applications and websites, and opt-out of instant personalisation.

But if you opt out of applications and the entire face book platform, a major downside is that you will be unable to play games.

Tech websites said that users are still being pushed to share information by default. Privacy International reacted to the changes with "disappointment and frustration".

"While we acknowledge Facebook for putting right the mess that it created last December by deploying unusable settings, this latest action is only the first of many steps to be taken before the nature of privacy," it said.

Chester Wisniewski, a researcher at the anti-virus firm Sophos, said Facebook had changed its privacy controls without offering increased privacy:

"I welcome the simplified controls, but nothing has changed," Wisniewsk said, "I didn't see hints of an apology, nor a solid acknowledgment that Facebook went too far."

"We believe in privacy. We believe in giving people control," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said at a press conference in San Francisco to announce the overhaul.

But more and more, people want to share information. As long as they have good control over that, I think that's where the world is going."