Major Facebook Privacy Control Changes

Facebook has always been a target for criticism when it comes to privacy. The News Feed/Mini Feed hysteria and Beacon fiasco both come to mind as two prominent examples. Recently the NY Times wrote an article claiming that it was impossible to completely delete your account. (Facebook has since addressed this issue.) Zuckerberg and his cronies have been a little slow to figure out that people just don’t like their information being used without their precise knowledge of how and by whom. With this latest update they may have finally figured it out. Today Facebook unveiled its new privacy controls. The biggest changes have to do with a user’s ability to control who sees what on their profile.

It used to be that a user could either allow their friends to see their entire profile or put them on a setting called Limited Profile. I could choose what I wanted visible on my LP, then select which friends I wanted to see that instead of my standard profile. One major drawback here is that I couldn’t make any further distinctions. My reasons for setting a friend to LP were diverse. Some I’d rather not share my photos with, others my Wall. But because there was only one LP I had to strip it down until it pretty much had nothing on it.

Now I have much more flexibility. I can now customize the visibility of each individual piece of my basic information and contact information per friend (or per friend list). The same is true for each application I have installed. Rodney Rumford over on FaceReviews.com has an excellent writeup on the change, complete with screen shots so you can see what I’m talking about. You can also take a look at Facebook’s official blog entry on the changes. These new privacy controls allow me to show a different side of myself to different people. My profile can look goofy to my college friends, professional to my coworkers, and relatively blank to those people I’m friends with from my distant past.

By the way, Limited Profile no longer exists as a privacy feature. If you used to use it you’ll now find it listed as one of your friend lists. Each section which you previously had set to LP is now blocking all people included on that list.

If you’re a Facebook user but don’t really care that the privacy controls are a lot slicker than they used to be I would still click over there to confirm that your settings are set the way you want them.