• Wired et al., Wednesday, May 19, 2010 12:12 PM

Threatened by mounting privacy concerns -- from both outside and inside the company -- Facebook has committed to releasing more "simplistic" privacy options.

"We've heard from our users that we have gotten a little bit complex," Tim Sparapani, head of public policy at Facebook, said in a radio interview Tuesday. "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."

"Currently, new users are set to very public defaults, including having their profile information shared with other online services such as Yelp and Pandora," Wired's Epicenter blog notes. "While it's not clear what those (new) options will look like or if they will be presented to existing users, one supposes that at least new users will be given some broad options to choose from along the lines of 'I'm an exhibitionist,' 'I like sharing with a lot of people, but not everybody' and 'I'm a private person who just wants to share with friends and family.'"

"It's not a bad solution--the vast majority of Facebook's near-500 million users who don't care about such things would be offered better, if slightly automated, protection," writes Fast Company.

Still, ReadWriteWeb characterizes the planned changes as "Facebook's two-steps-forward-one-step back policy, pioneered during the Beacon and friends list debacles."

What's more, The Wall Street Journal suggests that the changes could have brought implications for the future of Facebook -- even threatening its young founder's ambitions for the company. "A backlash over Facebook Inc.'s privacy practices has triggered disagreement inside the company that could force Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to scale back efforts to encourage users to share more about themselves in public."

Hinting at unrest from within the company, The Journal adds: "The site's privacy travails have rattled Facebook employees and put pressure on Mr. Zuckerberg, who has argued for years that its users should be more open with their information ... He has at times over-ruled employees who argue Facebook should make more information private, by default, according to people familiar with the matter."

"What I'm still wondering is why Mark Zuckerberg or any other executive haven't made a formal announcement stating that they are listening," writes All Facebook's Nick O'Neill. "While representatives of the company's communications department have stated that the company is listening and will effectively do the right thing, no formal statement has come from Mark Zuckerberg."

As The Journal reports and PCWorld points out, "The biggest issue up for debate at Facebook HQ ... is what to do about the social network's labyrinthine privacy system that many users have found confusing ... The New York Times reported earlier this month that you need to navigate through 50 settings and more than 170 options to completely manage your privacy on Facebook."

Read the whole story at Wired et al. »