Facebook's privacy settings cause concern

The new privacy settings on Facebook accounts have caught the attention of the site's users and the media. While users were always concerned about who could view their pages, the recent change in privacy settings, which allows looser boundaries on information, has caused backlash and criticism against the popular networking site.

The new Facebook privacy settings on accounts have caught the attention of its users and the media. While users were always concerned about their viewers, the recent change in privacy settings, which allows looser boundaries on information, has caused backlash and criticism against the popular networking site.

Facebook changed its privacy options in December to reduce the complexity of the process for its users. Now, a person can access almost every part of their profile through the drop-down "account" menu on the right. Also, users can now choose from three levels of privacy to set who can see certain pieces of information: friends only, friends of friends or everyone. They can also choose to customize their settings to hide information from certain people.

Despite the fact that users now have "easier" controls, many believe that Facebook is forcing their users to share more information than they intend to. Users now only have the choice of making their friends list available to either everyone or no one at all.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, users no longer have the option of showing a "limited profile" to other users. Publicly available information now includes the user's name, profile picture, gender, current city, friends list and fan pages — all of which have vanished from the privacy settings page.

In addition, Facebook is now suggesting that users share everything on their profile with "everyone,"' because this would "make it easier to find and identify friends." However, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the "everyone" option, which is recommended by Facebook and on default unless changed manually, allows all users to see the person's information. This information is also accessible through outside search engines. However, a user can control if outside search engines find them by un-checking the "allow" box in the "public search results" section under privacy.

Users are mainly concerned with the different viewers that will search them on Google and Yahoo.

"I definitely think that employers now have the chance to see people's private information more easily, but it all depends on the person's settings," said Katherine Baek, a marketing major at Baruch. "I always make sure to keep my information as private as possible."

On the other hand, some users see nothing wrong with the changes.

"As long as I have the privacy options, I can change the privacy settings on my own." said sophomore Cuiyu Wu.

According to the Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, the site's users no longer see privacy as a priority.

"People have really gotten comfortable sharing more information and different kinds but more openly and with more people," said Zuckerberg at an awards ceremony in San Francisco. "That social norm is just something that's evolved over time."

However, his claims seem to go against what most Facebook users actually want. The EFF is "worried that today's changes will lead to Facebook users publishing to the world much more information about themselves than they ever intended." According to a blog on its website, the EFF also "does not think that those new defaults fall within the average Facebook user's ‘reasonable expectations."

Despite complaints, Facebook has improved the user's control over other parts of the site, such as the ability to hide certain photos from specific people, to restrict updates to certain friends only, and to preview their profile as other people will see it.

"Facebook is a public site, where people all over the world have access to the information that you put on their site, and you agree to them owning the material that you place there," said junior La-Toya Niles, a marketing major.

There are certain privacy violations that one is going to have to deal with, but otherwise, I do believe that they strive to give users moderate protection through their features."