That sigh of relief you hear is from parents, jobs seekers, and social networkers all over the planet: Facebook's notoriously complex privacy policy has been revamped, for the simpler. Now, instead of several steps to insure your privacy on the website, Facebook lets you click once, to make your content (wall postings, photographs, that sort of thing) available only to whom you want them to be available to.
Step one: Go to the "account" menu. Step two: privacy settings. From there, customize your content in one click, or, if you'd prefer, customize that content iten by item.
The change, it seems, comes from the top. Although our cameras were not allowed inside Facebook's announcement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke outside company headquarters outside of the announcement, saying "Now, there's one control to use for all information on the site." He says you can protect whatever it is you want kept private "within a couple of clicks if that's what you want."
Zuckerberg went on to explain that his company is not altering its privacy policy to appease advertisers, but to appease its users. After recent snafus that - among other things - allowed Facebook advertisers to see users' personal data, the company had to change things, and fast. Facebook users are the company's crown jewel. If enough of them leave, the company is done for. So, the head 'Booker took pains to tell us that he, and his firm, listen to users more closely than ever.
"The main thing we heard was, controls need to be simpler," Zuckerberg admitted. So, he and his staff got to work. "We hunkered down, and changed things, and we're announcing it and rolling it out today." Whether or not these changes are enough to keep upset users in the fold will play out in the coming days and weeks.
And as for a future Facebook IPO? Zuckerberg says there are no current plans to take his company public. Understandable. Maybe logging a few weeks without user complaints will give Facebook its mojo back.
