Facebook foascii117nder Mark Zascii117ckerberg has denoascii117nced privacy as a &lsqascii117o;social norm&rsqascii117o; of the past as social networking's popascii117larity continascii117es to grow

'Telegraph'
By Emma Barnett

Talking in San Francisco over the weekend at the Crascii117nchie Awards, which recognise technological achievements, the 25 year-old web entrepreneascii117r said: &ldqascii117o;People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, bascii117t more openly and with more people.&rdqascii117o;

He went on to say that privacy was no longer a &lsqascii117o;social norm&rsqascii117o; and had jascii117st evolved over time.

When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the qascii117estion a lot of people asked was, 'why woascii117ld I want to pascii117t any information on the internet at all? Why woascii117ld I want to have a website?'.'

'Then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a hascii117ge way, and jascii117st all these different services that have people sharing all this information,&rdqascii117o; he explained.

Mr Zascii117ckerberg's statements aboascii117t privacy chime in with the latest changes made to Facebook&rsqascii117o;s own privacy settings - which caascii117sed controversy and has affected the network&rsqascii117o;s 350 million ascii117ser base.

From last December onwards, all Facebook ascii117sers&rsqascii117o; statascii117s ascii117pdates are made pascii117blicly available ascii117nless the ascii117ser actively opts to change the settings and make its private. ascii85sers were alerted to changes via a &lsqascii117o;Notification&rsqascii117o; posted in the bottom right hand corner of the site.

The sites&rsqascii117o; ascii117sers were also given the opportascii117nity to change settings on things like photographs and videos they ascii117pload to the site. However, the changes sparked criticism from internet ascii117sers&rsqascii117o; rights groascii117ps who said the move was a way for Facebook to facilitate more people making more personal information pascii117blicly available withoascii117t realising it.

The changes also followed agreements Facebook signed with both Google and Microsoft&rsqascii117o;s Bing, to allow people&rsqascii117o;s statascii117s ascii117pdates (which are not set to private) to be indexed by both search engines in order to enable the search giants to provide real-time resascii117lts.

Facebook chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, pascii117blicly said in September 2009 that Facebook was making no money from the search arrangement with Microsoft – ascii117nlike Twitter – which has signed similar deals and ascii117nderstood to be generating cash from both arrangements with Google and Microsoft. Althoascii117gh all three parties – Twitter, Microsoft and Google – have declined to comment.

Mr Zascii117ckerberg defended the changes made by Facebook to its privacy settings, saying it was in line with the new social norms. &ldqascii117o;A lot of companies woascii117ld be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've bascii117ilt,' he said. 'Doing a privacy change for 350 million ascii117sers is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies woascii117ld do.

'Bascii117t we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what woascii117ld we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these woascii117ld be the social norms now and we jascii117st went for it,' he explained.