Facebook’s new in-line privacy tools sound a lot like Google+

Social networking site Facebook today announced that it is adding new tools to let users share content with specific groups of friends, rather than publicly with all of their friends.

The site is also moving most of its privacy settings so that they appear alongside what is actually going on in the site. For example, you can approve or reject a photo tag from the actual photo rather than having to open up privacy settings in your specific account settings page.

“A lot of the controls we are adding are not new, it’s all about making it more usable,”?Facebook product manager Kate O’Neil told VentureBeat.

The features sound a lot like those that appear in Google’s latest social network, Google+. Rather than sequester the privacy settings on a separate settings page away from the actual action on the site, Facebook is moving its privacy and sharing features straight to the main page. It removes a lot of the hassle of having to jump to different pages to tweak privacy controls.

“We’ve been working on this for over 6 months, working really closely with a bunch of privacy groups and users, and we’ve been building it for about six months or so,” O’Neil said. “When people feel comfortable with who they are sharing with, they share more and engage more with Facebook.”

Here are a few of the changes Facebook is making to its sharing and privacy controls. The company plans to roll the changes out over the next several days.

Specified content sharing — The site has added a drop-down menu on the window where you post a new piece of content. You can decide which friends or groups of friends can view the new content through that menu before you publish it. Those controls previously existed in a settings page that was a little more complicated to access.

Tagging approval — Facebook users will also get a chance to approve a new photo tag or publication tag before it goes live with the new privacy controls. You can send a notification to someone who has tagged you in a photo asking to take the photo down or manually remove the tag. Facebook also includes the option to block someone who has tagged a photo of you. Until you approve the tag, no one can view it on your profile.

Review mode — You can now also see how your profile looks as if it were viewed by a friend or a new user looking to add you as a friend. It’s a feature that has been available on business social networking site LinkedIn for some time — but that site treats your profile more like a resume.

Locations and editing — You can now add a location to any of your content posts, similar to what you can do in Google+. You can also edit content pieces and change who can view those posts after the post goes up, rather than having to delete the post and post it again under a smaller circle.

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Tags: content sharing, Google, in-line privacy, privacy, social networking

Companies: Facebook, Google

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Apple phasing out iOS UDID access to solve privacy woes

With the launch of the most recent iOS 5 beta release, Apple is now instructing third-party developers to stop using the unique device identifier (UDID) in iOS devices, which is often used to track user behavior.

The change will disrupt business for many app developers, especially for mobile ad networks and companies like Tapjoy that rely upon UDID access heavily, but it could mean the end of major privacy concerns for Apple.

It’s also a good thing for users, since they will now have to opt-in to be tracked by developers. Unlike cookies, which are used on web browsers to track user activity, Apple’s device IDs are permanent, and users can’t block their transmission to third parties.

The latest iOS 5 documentation states that Apple will be deprecating UDID access for developers, according to a report from TechCrunch last week, and it now recommends that developers create unique identifiers specific to their apps. By deprecating the feature, Apple won’t be removing it enirely in iOS 5, but it’s fair warning to developers that they won’t be able to rely on it for much longer. Apple has historically discouraged developers from relying too heavily on UDIDs, so the change could just be seen as Apple being firmer with its preexisting stance.

We’ve asked several major iOS developers about the change, but we’ve yet to receive a response from any of them. Either they’re still figuring out how they’ll approach a UDID-less world, or they’re staying mum to avoid Apple’s wrath. Apple also hasn’t yet responded to further details about the change.

At the moment, it’s unclear if Apple will still be able to access UDIDs for its own services like iAds and Game Center. That would certainly give Apple a major advantage over third-party developers, as it can track UDIDs without waiting for users to register within apps. But it’s also the sort of feature disparity that could spark an antitrust investigation by regulators.

Apple could avoid many privacy headaches by killing off UDID access entirely. The company was sued last year by a Los Angeles man specifically because UDIDs were so easily accessible by apps, and a long-running Wall Street Journal feature revealed that many apps are sharing UDIDs, along with other personal information, without users’ knowledge.

But losing access to the feature will be a major blow to developers, since it will mean they will have to start their user tracking records from scratch. And for companies like Tapjoy and Flurry, which rely heavily on UDIDs to track and promote apps, it could mean a significant change is in order. Tapjoy CEO Mihir Shah recently railed against Apple’s restrictions on pay-per-action advertising at our MobileBeat conference in July.

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Tags: apps, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, mobile ads, smartphones, UDID

Companies: Apple

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