Safe sharing: Networking site lets users boost privacy

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San Francisco: Facebook, the world’s No.1 internet social network, took a step towards opening up parts of its site to outsiders on Wednesday by introducing more options for user’s privacy settings.

The changes will make it easier for Facebook’s more than 350 million users to limit who sees their musings, videos, photos and other personal information. But will also give them the opportunity to expose a wider swathe of their information to a broader internet audience.

The move comes as internet search engines like Google and Microsoft are increasingly showing interest in incorporating the growing trove of user-generated content from social media websites into their search results.

“We certainly want to respond to the requests of people to be able to share information in all sorts of different ways,” said Elliot Schrage, Facebook Vice President of Global Communications and public policy.

Schrage said Facebook users will be greeted with a message on Wednesday presenting them with new options to customize privacy settings and directing them to a new simplified overview page of all their personal privacy settings.

The changes will not, in any way, alter Facebook’s policies governing the kind of user information that is shared with adverstisers.