• All Facebook, Thursday, May 27, 2010 2:36 PM

A day after Facebook detailed its forthcoming privacy amendments, the industry is asking whether the social net went far enough, if the changes will quiet the most vocal critics, and for how long.

"Overall, the new settings should be much easier as they only require a single click rather than configuring 50 different things," writes All Facebook. "For those users what [sic] granular control, it still exists, but the redesigned privacy settings were built for the masses and that means they should be much more simple."

Still, "It's a given that these tweaks won't satisfy every unhappy camper," writes PCWorld. "For example, it sounds like Facebook will still share your info via Instant Personalization by default; if this bothers you, you've got to proactively tell it to knock it off."

Of particular note, influential blogger Robert Scoble remains in the unhappy camp. "I'm still don't [sic] trust Facebook enough to move my business into it," he writes. "Will I ever? Yes, probably ... But it will take time for me, and you, to trust this company beyond just playing games or poking our friends."

Gartner analyst Ray Valdes tells Reuters that the new policies should help make users concerned about privacy feel more secure. Yet, "There are other voices that will continue -- governments, public sector and privacy advocates ... The fundamental issues won't go away .... They will reappear over time .... Again and again."

Even more ominously, TechCrunch argues that Facebook's privacy issues have only just begun, and that they will be greatly accelerated by the company's inevitable adoption of location-based "check-ins." "This problem is only going to get worse," it writes. "The [privacy issues] with the greatest potential to creep people out are the geo-specific ones, which probably explains why Facebook is taking its sweet time to roll out its own geo features like geo-tagged updates and photos."

Meanwhile, another Gartner analyst, Andrew Walls, wonders how the changes will affect Facebook's business model. "Some questions not really answered were issues around the sharing of personal data with advertisers for doing targeted ads based on profile content," he tells The BBC. "That's a tricky one -- how do you make money if you can't sell targeted ads? How do you compete with Google?"

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