Facebook completes privacy revamp

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 2 Dec 2009 at 16:27

Facebook's much-hyped privacy revamp has gone live.

The new privacy features allow users to decide how much of their profile can be viewed by their friends, letting them hide individual items such as photo albums and contact details from specific people.

The company is also introducing a "friends of friends" feature which if selected will allow the friends of your contacts to view sections of your profile without needing to be added as a friend.

As with the other features the amount of information displayed will be scalable, and activated by the user.

We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you

The new features will be accessible through a new, simplified privacy interface intended to make it clear what is being altered and the effects it will have. Users will also be able to set the level of friendship when they first accept a friend.

"We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different," says Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on the company blog.

"We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customise them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online."

Zuckerberg also claimed that Facebook now has 350 million users.