Facebook Streamlines Clunky Privacy Settings

Facebook is starting a pilot program to test a more user-friendly version of its sprawling privacy controls, CNET reports. The 40 different settings now occupy six separate pages, and are so complicated that many users ignore them completely. “These can add up and pile up and not be as clean as one would like," Facebook’s chief privacy officer said today. So-called “transition tolls” will aid users in the switch.

The new controls will allow users to tailor settings for every post, and even allow info to be searchable from the Web, impossible before. Facebook is also phasing out “regional networks,” which had become redundant, unwieldy, and unpopular. The site assures advertisers that it will still be able to target ads geographically with other info and IP addresses. Beta testing will begin with 40,000 users in the US. (More Facebook stories.)