Facebook can say it isn't worried about the "other social network," but the latest privacy changes show the giant is taking a page out of Google+'s privacy playbook.
Facebook
will be rolling out a number of new security and privacy features that will
make the social networking site more like Google+.
The
social networking giant announced a "bunch of improvements that make it
easier to share posts, photos, tags and other content with exactly the people
you want," according to an Aug. 23 post on the
Facebook Blog.
The changes will be rolling out to users "in the coming days."
The
new changes are intended to make it easier to limit shared items to certain
groups and see at a glance what people can see. They are very similar to what
is already available on the more privacy-conscious Google+.
"Although
they've denied it, there can't be any doubt that the launch of Google+ may have
influenced some of the design decisions here," Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant at Sophos, wrote on the
Naked
Security blog.
Most
of Facebook's granular privacy controls are generally hard to find, buried
behind layers of menu options. That is no longer the case as the main change
involves moving the privacy controls out of the settings page to being inline
for ease of access, Chris Cox, Facebook's vice president of product, wrote on
the Facebook Blog.
"You
have told us that 'who can see this?' could be clearer across Facebook, so we
have made changes to make this more visual and straightforward," wrote
Cox.
Going
forward, each post and photo will have a privacy control alongside it, making
it more obvious as to who would be able to see the content. While there was a
gray lock icon next to wall posts that allowed users to restrict their sharing
options, the new inline controls will be more obvious as a big blue button.
The
new controls are "like how Google+ operates, with users being able to
choose at the time of post exactly which individuals or groups of friends
(known within Google+ as 'circles') they wish to share information with,"
said Cluley.
The
drop-down menu will expand over time to include user-defined friend lists,
co-workers and groups, Cox said.
The
same inline controls will also be available on user profiles. Every single
profile element, such as favorite music, books, address, phone number, employer
and school, can be individually tweaked to display to everyone, or be limited
to friends or to a customized list.
"Your
profile should feel like your home on the Web-you should never feel like stuff
appears there that you don't want, and you should never wonder who sees what's
there," Cox said.
Facebook
has also added a "View Profile As ..." button to the top of the
user's profile to get a feel for how the page looks to others, similar to
what's currently available on the "other" social network. This option
was previously buried within the site's privacy settings.
Another
Google+-like change is a terminology change. Facebook will change the
"everyone" setting to show "Public." The change would
convey that it meant "everyone, everywhere on the Internet, forever,"
Cluley said.
Facebook
will allow users some control over which photos they are tagged in show up on
their profile pages. Users can choose a privacy setting that will require them
to approve every photo and video as they are tagged before any of it can appear
on the profile pages.
If
a user rejects being tagged in a photo or video, Facebook will give the user an
option to simply remove the tag, ask the person to remove the content or block
the person.
Photo-tagging
is one of the "most unpopular elements of the site," according to
feedback received by Naked Security, Cluley wrote. "Users would like the
ability to block anyone from tagging them in photographs without their express
permission, rather than simply blocking the photo from appearing on their
profile," he said.
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