The change in the privacy policy of social networking site Facebook has drawn attention of users as well as critics.
Concerns were voiced following the updating of privacy settings by users of Facebook, which in turn will lead to their private details going public unless the settings are changed manually to keep them confidential. This change has been introduced since December 9th, whereby Facebook decided to opt for better management and publication of the details of individual users.
According to the changed settings, more information will be made available to the public by default and the users will have to change the settings manually for protecting even key information like gender and place. Critics also believe that Facebook is pushing people towards making information more public, as the information put up on Facebook is accessible through syndication feeds and search engines.
The move is also being seen as a way of enhancing traffic to the social networking website by making more content public and thereby attracting more people towards the site through searches. It will also take a bit of diligence on part of the users to make sure that they change the settings to avoid unnecessary publication of their confidential information.
Though the new privacy settings has been defended by Barry Schnitt, a spokesperson of Facebook, as a means of making it easier to manage the information that is made public, critics suggest that this has put unnecessary burden on the users.
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