Facebook's 'Instant Personalization' asks users to drill down and make subgroups of their friends so that when they search, their friends' "likes" are prioritized.
So if your friends like a certain Thai restaurant and you are searching for such a place to eat, their likes or recommends will pop up first on your list.
But in order to get the goods, you have to sign up. And you have to trust that your information isn't being over-shared with other apps and vendors.
The Personalization page has been around a while, but it apparently is having trouble getting traction. Why else on Monday would Facebook publish a page that explains both how to control it and how its privacy settings work?
The page has a step-by-step video that walks people through the feature. It also explains in detailed privacy settings.
Facebook puts its privacy promise this way:
Partners adhere to Facebook's guidelines and may only use your public information to serve you a personalized experience. Public information includes your name, profile picture, gender, networks and other information shared with everyone.
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Your information can only be used to present you with a more personalized experience and cannot be transferred to advertisers or used for any other purposes.
The partners currently part of the Instant Personalization effort are Bing, Clicker, Rotten Tomatoes, Docs.com, Pandora, Yelp and Scribd.
