Begonia Infosys had been writing about the various privacy violations by Facebook. that has caused people lot of headache. Looks like the shouting by BIS and numerous others websites, bloggers and eminent tech honchos on the internet about the need to rectify the privacy violations on Facebook have finally borne fruit.  BIS had even published some time back a blog titled  Social Networking, Facebook and Infringement of Privacy on this very issue. As such after enduring weeks of criticism over his company's latest privacy changes, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today offered a mea culpa in an op-ed column in the Washington Post. But some industry observers doubt that the tweaks he outlined will be enough to satisfy users' concerns. Social networking giant Facebook admitted Monday that it had made mistakes in its privacy policies and promised to roll out new tools that would make it easier for its 400 million users to control their personal data.

Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old billionaire founder of the second most popular site on the internet, made the admission in a column that appeared in the Washington Post on Monday amid growing user anger sparked by a string of privacy glitches. "The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information," Mark Zuckerberg further wrote "Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex. Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted." Mark Zuckerberg also said that the company would introduce simpler privacy settings within weeks, as well as a way to block all third-party services. Facebook has often come in for criticism of its privacy policy, whose default setting is to allow large amounts of personal data to be viewed and searched by the public. Criticism grew following the introduction of new features recently that extended Facebook buttons across numerous internet sites and could have exposed users' browsing habits to others. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook dropped a bombshell on the tech industry last week in the form of a Web-wide "Like" button and the launch of the "Open Graph." Using this new platform, websites can drive traffic from Facebook by including Like buttons on their pages; every 'Like' posts an update to that user's Facebook page. Facebook, the powerful social network said 50,000 websites have adopted the change. What's more, any website can customize its experience, if logged into Facebook. "Already, just one week since launch, more than 50,000 sites across the Web have implemented the new plugins," Sandra Liu Huang said on Facebook's blog for application developers.

"We are thrilled by the strong adoption so far as developers realize how easy social plugins are to use and how powerful they are in engaging users in a frictionless experience without requiring them to share any personal information." People use the "Like" button to recommend websites, news stories, blog posts and music to friends. Facebook announced the change at its f8 conference on April 21. At the time, only 75 sites had signed up to use the feature, which is Facebook's way of making the entire web a more social experience. In a keynote address at f8, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said there would be 1 billion "Like" buttons scattered all over the web within 24 hours of his announcement. Thursday's blog post makes no mention of whether that target was met. Read the rest of this entry »