Facebook looks set to simplify its privacy settings whereas Google has downplayed privacy fears of its own.
The social networking behemoth told BBC News that it’s listening to the message coming from its users (over 400 million people use Facebook) that it has “made things too complex,” and “we’re working on responding to these concerns,” before adding the classic payoff of “watch this space.” Facebook has come under fire from the likes of U.S. senators, the European Union and civil liberty groups. What’s more, some users have organised a “Quit Facebook” day for May 31 and the company held an internal meeting recently to address the problem, which has resulted in some high-profile deactivations.
As for Google, chief Eric Schmidt said at the annual Zeitgeist conference in London that there was “no, harm, no foul,” in light of the company owning up to collecting some web activity from people’s wi-fi. If anything, Schmidt felt, the incident has harmed Google more than any individual, and how it was “highly unlikely” any of this information was “useful” and there appeared to “have been no use of that data.”