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New Facebook Privacy Policy Will Consider User Requests

Posted on: Friday, 30 October 2009, 12:20 CDT

New changes for Facebook’s privacy policy will be carried out after the popular social networking site considers feedback from its more than 300 million users, AFP said.

Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s Vice president of communications and public policy, wrote in a post on the Facebook blog that members could send in their comments about the proposed changes until November 5.

He said the feedback was part of the ongoing plan to run Facebook in an open and transparent way.

"After the comment period is over, we'll review your feedback and update you on our next steps," he wrote.

Canada, whose privacy czar conducted an investigation into Facebook’s handling of personal information, prompted some of the new changes to the site’s privacy policy.

"In this revision, we're fulfilling our commitment to the privacy commissioner of Canada to update our privacy policy to better describe a number of practices," Schrage said.

He said they’ve specifically included sections that further explain the privacy setting you can choose to make your content viewable by everyone.

The changes also clear up the difference between deactivating and deleting an account and the process of memorializing an account once a report has been received that the account holder is deceased.

The new rules will save profile information such as friend lists and photos from a deactivated account in case a member decides to reactivate it later, but the material will not be viewable to the rest of the site.

However, a deleted account is "permanently deleted."

But information from a deleted account may still be viewable on the pages of other users if it was shared or copied and stored by them, Facebook said.

The blog posting said a user’s name would no longer be associated with that information on Facebook and would be attributed to an "anonymous Facebook user."

The company also insisted that personal data is not provided to advertisers.

Schrage said the information they provide to advertisers is 'anonymized,' meaning that it can't be traced back to the user as an individual in any way.

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Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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