Facebook revamps privacy options

19 March 2008

Social networking site Facebook has extended its privacy settings, giving users more choice over who can see their profile content.

The site's privacy settings have been standardised so that they appear consistently across all pages. In addition, "friends of friends" has been introduced as a setting, enabling users to share their details with a wider group of people without making them available to all.

Writing on the Facebook blog, product manager Naomi Gleit explained that information could also now be published to, or blocked from, specific friend groups.

"For example," she wrote, "you can upload your 'Family vacation' photo album and share it only with your mom and dad or only your 'Family' friend list.

"Alternatively, you can restrict them from seeing a photo album that may not be so Family-friendly."

Meanwhile, TechCrunch has reported that Facebook is about to introduce an instant messaging (IM) service, which will at first be limited to conversations between Facebook users.

Last week, AOL said that it planned to marry its ICQ and AIM messaging services to the newly-acquired Bebo social network. Writing in TechCrunch, Michael Arrington described the timing of Facebook's IM launch as "interesting".

Category: Social media