Most notable about the new privacy controls is the fact that Facebook members will now be able to choose how much of their profiles are visible to those on their friends list. Facebook fires up IM, ratchets up privacy.

Posted by Caroline McCarthy

CNET News.com’s Dan Farber co-wrote this report.

Social network Facebook will roll out more extensive privacy controls Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, as well as an instant-messaging service soon after, representatives from the company announced during a press briefing at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

The new Facebook friend-adding interface, integrated with privacy controls.
Naomi Gleit, Facebook’s product manager for privacy and internationalization, previewed the updated options, which include a new “Friend of Friends” option based on social proximity–not unlike LinkedIn profiles, in which profile information is visible to second- and third-degree contacts rather than the site’s members as a whole. Facebook members will also be able to include or exclude certain friends from having access to information.

In December, Facebook added the ability to create custom groups of friends, but aside from sending out group messages, there’s not much that can currently be done with them. With this week’s update, Facebook will integrate this function with its privacy controls. For example, a user could hide or show private information, such as e-mail address and phone numbers, from friends or groups using the classifications “Friend of Friends,” “All Friends,” “Some Friends,” or “Only Me.” This means that individuals on a friends list can have specific privacy settings, Gleit said. Whenever a Facebook member sends or confirms a friend request, he or she can assign privacy settings.

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