• TechCrunch et al., Tuesday, May 25, 2010 1:28 PM

On Wednesday, Facebook will be rolling out "drastically simplified" and improved privacy controls to its hundreds of millions of users, Chris Cox, the company's VP of product, said Tuesday.

"He didn't give any details, but did suggest that [the changes] should alleviate some of the recent privacy problems Facebook has faced," reports TechCrunch.

At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Tuesday, Cox said the Facebook team has had an "intense and humbling couple of weeks" amidst outcry over confusing and invasive privacy controls, writes GigaOm. "But until now -- aside from the occasional condescending Q&A and avoiding-the-big-issues op-ed -- Facebook has largely kept quiet."

Cox stressed that he doesn't believe the privacy ruckus has been overblown by the media, GigaOm notes. "A lot of people really care [about privacy]," Cox said on Tuesday.

"What [the new] features might look like is still anyone's guess, but we'd expect to see an alternative (or outright replacement) to the granular controls that Facebook currently offers," points out Mashable. Still, "While that may appease some of those who think the site confuses users into sharing more information, the biggest question is whether or not recent feature additions -- specifically instant personalization and a series of social plugins -- will move from automatic opt-in to manual (a.k.a. -- default opt-out)."

Either way, the changes will be unmistakable, Cox said Tuesday. "You'll know about it," he told conference attendees, according to The Next Web.

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