Facebook's new privacy settings

Facebook's new privacy settings: "

Facebook's new privacy settings explained through screenshots

Facebook claims its new privacy settings will make it much easier for users to control information, with fewer separate pages of options (eight, instead of 13) and fewer options needed to make all your information private: 15, instead of 50. It's also made many of the settings visible at a glance.

Here's the old first page of the privacy settings. It looks simple and friendly, but it doesn't tell you what your settings currently are, and you need to click through further to change anything:

Once you did click through, you were immediately plunged into a thicket of options:

The new privacy settings page gives you what are considered the main options in a chart form, and makes it possible to shift 18 settings with one click on a preset. So while the default options – see the top of this story – remain pretty liberal, hitting 'Friends only' closes a lot down quickly:

And this is what you get with the 'friends of friends' preset – note that some more sensitive information remains 'friends only':

It's also still possible to customise for yourself, of course:

Control of information that Facebook considers particularly important to make the site run smoothly is still separate – the 'basic directory information' bit, at the top. But it has restored the ability to lock down your 'connections' – your friends and 'pages', the things that used to be called fan pages – which was one of the more hotly discussed issues in the recent privacy controversy. Your profile picture still has to be shared with everyone.

The 'applications and sites' menu – one click down from the first privacy page – includes the search visibility options that used to be on the first page, and specific control of the 'instant personalisation' program that uses your Facebook profile to enhance the working of other sites – another key source of controversy. It also gives you the option to completely turn off Facebook Platform apps and websites.

A further level down is 'info accessible through your friends', which offers an insight into why Facebook Connect applications might make one nervous...

• (Via The Guardian World News.)