Facebook simplifies privacy controls for applications

On June 30, Facebook unveiled new controls designed to give users more control over how they share information with third-party applications.

The majority of Facebook users interact with third-party applications on the site, some of which require permission to capture a user's profile information. Additionally, many websites accept Facebook login information as validation to comment or post content. Spokesman Andrew Noyes said there are currently 550,000 active applications on the Facebook and more than a million websites integrated into the platform. The company's chief technology officer Bret Taylor announced the changes on the company's blog and said applications must now ask before accessing a user's private information. They must also specify which private content the application will access; profile information made public may still be accessed without notification. "These improvements reflect two core Facebook beliefs: first, your data belongs to you; second, it should be easy to control what you share," Taylor writes. "If at any point you ask a developer to remove the data you've granted them access to, we require that that they delete this information."