Today Facebook held a press conference to announce its new privacy controls for consumers. The controls are designed so that a user can control who sees what on a more granular level than before. So you can control who sees a specific post, not just who sees posts in general.
But while the update is being pushed as something that gives users more control, it is actually opening users up to the entire Internet with a new option to “Share with Everyone.” That everyone is not just friends, or just Facebook users, but includes Google and the entire Web. This is not really clear to the user.
Speculation from the industry is that Facebook is trying to keep up with Twitter for real time searches around updates and news, but this could create a backlash for consumers when they find their private data coming up on search engines, not knowingly.
In order to not broadcast to the world, a user has to select who they would like to share information and if they can‘t figure it out, it will go far and wide.
And while consumers are also able to control their privacy settings when it comes to advertisers, this move might also open users up to sharing more data with advertisers than they meant to. Seems like a tricky way to increase transparency and control, if the user doesn’t know how to work the new settings.
