Facebook is to introduce new privacy controls next week letting users set their level of “frictionless sharing”, which has until now allowed apps such as Spotify or Yahoo! News to automatically post on the social network about users’ listening or reading habits.
Facebook is to introduce new privacy controls next week letting users set their level of “frictionless sharing”, which has until now allowed apps such as Spotify or Yahoo! News to automatically post on the social network about users’ listening or reading habits.
The move follows a series of complaints from users and privacy campaigners.
‘Frictionless sharing’ was a feature where apps like Spotify would share your listening habits with your Facebook friends.
Before today’s update, Facebook apps would combine all their permissions in one menu before installing on their accounts ; access your friends list and posting activity to Facebook, for example.
“Soon you’ll start to see these requests happen separately, so you have more control over what you share,” Facebook said. “For example, a person can grant a music app the ability to read their public profile and friends list to personalize their experience in the app, but decline to allow it to post what they listen to to Facebook on their behalf.”
Facebook said the move is intended to help users quickly settings without having to “navigate through a separate set of pages.”
Chief privacy officer Erin Egan said: “Our goal is to avoid users being surprised in any way, and to provide controls to enable them to control what is shared and with whom.”
The social network said it will also add alerts throughout the site to remind you how certain features work – “such as in-context reminders about how stuff you hide from timeline may still appear in news feed, search, and other places,” the company said.
When the new updates go live at the end of the year, the toolbar atop of Facebook will include a new lock icon; click that and a drop-down menu will include a “Who can see my stuff?” option, as well as “Who can contact me?” or “How do I stop someone from bothering me?” A “See all settings” link will also take you to the broader Facebook privacy page.
The alerts will appear when you hide or block something from your account. If you hide an item from your timeline, for example, a message will appear below that says, “It still appears in search, news feed and other places on Facebook.”
If that’s unacceptable, there’s also the option to report the item or remove a tag.
Facebook has also updated the Activity Log, a feature introduced last year that gives you a snapshot of your activity on the social network. Facebook rolled out new navigation for Activity Log, as well as new ways to sort information to make it easier to drill down and see what’s online.
Facebook will also ditch the “Who can look up my timeline by name?” setting, which controlled who could look users up by typing their name into the search bar.
