Facebook Bows to Pressure Over Privacy

By MIGUEL HELFT and JENNA WORTHAM
NYT

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Ever since Facebook was founded in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, has pushed its users to share more information about themselves. Time and again, users have pushed back, complaining that some new feature or setting on the site violated their privacy.

But the reaction has rarely been as strong as in the last few weeks, as users, privacy advocates and government officials in many countries lobbed a series of increasingly vociferous complaints against the company. On Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg responded, unveiling a set of controls that he said would help people better understand what they were sharing online, and with whom.

“It has been a pretty intense few weeks for us,” said Mr. Zuckerberg, who added that he had been huddled with other senior executives for the last two weeks to help shape Facebook’s response.

The back and forth between Facebook and its users over privacy is gaining importance as the company’s growth continues unabated. It now has nearly 500 million users around the world, and its policies, more than those of any other company, are helping to define standards for privacy in the Internet age.

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