Facebook to revamp privacy settings 'one last time'

Mark Zuckerberg says he has listened to users' privacy complaints

Facebook is to make major changes to its privacy settings after the recent furore among users, and has said that it will be a long time before any further changes are considered.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said during a press conference at the company's headquarters that Facebook is making one last privacy settings change.

Users of the advertising-led Facebook Platform will be able to opt out with ease, and third-party applications will have reduced access to user information. A full guide to the new options will be published on the site.

"Since December maybe we should have gone slower and made our communications better. Privacy is the most sensitive thing for many users. In my opinion, if we'd dragged it out over a period of two years, things would have been worse," said Zuckerberg.

"But this is the end of the overhaul we're doing. One of the big takeaways we've got from this is don't mess with privacy stuff for a long time."

The new controls will be posted on a toolbar at the top of the Facebook home page within a month, representing one of the few times that such an alert has been posted.

The basic Friends, Friends of Friends and Everyone categories will remain, and the current settings will be available under an Advanced tab.

However, Facebook has committed to making the privacy settings current, universal and retroactive, so that all previous privacy settings can be controlled.

The most controversial move from a business standpoint will be the single button sign-out from the Facebook Platform advertising service, but taking this step would block users from the vast majority of applications and may not be widely adopted.

"Facebook still wants to support Platform and, while balancing with users, it's walking a fine line," Andrew Walls, a research director at Gartner, told V3.co.uk.

"The major item for advertisers is the ability to turn off Platform. Users can opt out, but as soon as you do you can't run Farmville and other applications. Turning off the application platform turns Facebook into a retrograde mode, pushing it back a few years."

Zuckerberg claimed that the previous changes were not motivated by the needs of advertisers.

"The big misconception is that these changes were for the advertising industry," he said. "Everyone who knows me knows that's crazy."

Zuckerberg also said that the recent privacy protests had not hit the company's bottom line.