Facebook Boosts Privacy Controls

Users now have greater control over what their friends – and their friends – can see.

Reuters reports that Facebook has upped its privacy stakes for users. As of this morning, the social network has givenusers more control over what different friends, not to mention friends of friends, can see of their profile.   The company has always offered plenty of privacy controls, but they claim that only25% of subscribers really take advantage of those controls.   Under the new system, users can create up to 100 different friends lists, a concept that was introduced in December.   MattCohler, Facebook’s vice president of product management, said,   "We have a lot more users, a lot more types of users, a lot more relationships, we have a lot more types ofrelationships." The company also confirmed that the long-rumored Facebook Chat instant messaging service will be started in just a few weeks, and as it will work in a web browser, won’trequire the downloading of any special software.