Facebook Bows to Pressure Over Privacy

Facebook is set to bow to users' demands, simplifying its privacy settings.

Vice president-products Chris Cox made the announcement at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York yesterday.

Cox said that the previous week, in which Facebook had been met with a backlash from tech critics and users worldwide, had been a humbling experience for the company. He promised to address the issue as soon as possible.

Facebook's old privacy settings, which included a total of 50 separate controls with 170 privacy options, attracted so much negative feedback that a group of protesters announced 31 May as international “Quit Facebook Day”.  

Founder Mark Zuckerberg, who turned a small college website into a social networking giant, last week admitted to making mistakes with the sites privacy settings and promised to take steps to rectify them.  

Cox has asked users to keep an eye on Facebook's official blog from Thursday evening to find out more about upcoming changes.