Facing mounting criticism that its privacy settings have become overly complex, Facebook is now considering changes “for users who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from.” It’s unclear, however, whether the planned changes will provide more options for users who don’t want to share certain information, or just make the existing choices easier to access.

As shared by Ars Technica:

Facebook public policy head Tim Sparapani said in a radio interview Tuesday that the company was working on simplifying its privacy controls because of user complaints about their complexity. “I think we are going to work on that. We are going to be providing options for users who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from and I think we will see that in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

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But despite these fixes and potential tweaks to Facebook’s settings, users have found themselves on a very different site than the one they used even a year ago. (And for those of us who have used Facebook since 2004, it may as well be a completely different company.) What happened to Facebook being the only social network to actually protect user information and leave everything opt-in instead of opt-out? Now, Facebook is widely known for putting user information at risk, making too many settings public by default, and for not sufficiently educating users on how to keep their information private.

If you don’t want to wait, here are some guidelines to help you maximize your privacy now. And this tool shows how Facebook’s policies toward sharing your personal information have changed over the years.

Facebook privacy coming to a head, changes may be imminent [Ars Technica]

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