Attention Facebook users!

To follow up on my previous blog post Can Facebook save face? Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart announced a deal last Thursday with Facebook to revise how it protects personal information of over 200 million users worldwide.

In Sarah Schmidt’s Ottawa Citizen article Facebook to comply with privacy recommendations: Commissioner she states that Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart announced that Facebook will add “significant new privacy safeguards” to conform the social networking site to Canada’s private-sector privacy law.

What does this mean for the 12 million Facebook users in Canada?

• Over the next year, Facebook will limit access of outside software developers to personal information of users. This will affect hundreds of thousands of third-party developers creating applications, including games and quizzes, for the social networking site.
• Facebook users adding an application will be advised the application wants specific categories of information and users can control which information they will allow developers to access.
• Facebook will make clear to users the difference between deactivating their account (their personal information will be held in digital storage) and deleting their account (their information will be erased from Facebook servers).

Reassuringly, Dave Morin, Facebook’s senior platform manager stated that privacy changes will permit users to have confidence in the control they have over their information and privacy.

“We truly feel like these improvements to Facebook platform will bring a new privacy standard to the social web,” says Morin.

What do you think Facebook users – will these new privacy measures set the standard for other social networking sites?