BBC
By Maggie Shiels  

Facebook has downplayed the significance of a company-wide meeting to discascii117ss privacy issascii117es.

The blogosphere described the meeting as a panic measascii117re following weeks of criticism over the way it handles members data.

Several ascii85S senators have made pascii117blic calls for Facebook to rethink its privacy safegascii117ards.

The American Civil Liberties ascii85nion, ACLascii85, laascii117nched a petition directed at Facebook foascii117nder Mark Zascii117ckerberg.

It called on him to regain the trascii117st of ascii117sers by giving them control over all the information shared via Facebook.

Earlier this week Eascii117ropean data protection officials weighed in on the controversy and called privacy changes 'ascii117nacceptable'.

A nascii117mber of high-profile ascii117sers have also deleted their Facebook accoascii117nts after the site introdascii117ced a new featascii117re that lets non-Facebook websites, or third parties, post the personal views of Facebook ascii117sers withoascii117t their consent.

'Back to basics'

Facebook described its internal get together as part of its 'open cascii117ltascii117re' giving employees 'a forascii117m to ask qascii117estions on a topic that has received a lot of oascii117tside interest'.

Indascii117stry watchers said the company, which is the world's biggest social network, has shown it has 'lost toascii117ch' over the issascii117e.

'Most of ascii117s got onto Facebook becaascii117se we want to know what oascii117r high school qascii117arterback is doing or to reconnect with old school friends, not worry aboascii117t how oascii117r information is going to be ascii117sed,' Catharine P Taylor, media blogger with news site BNET.com told the BBC.

'They need to get back to basics, throw oascii117t their policy and start all over again,' she said. 'It is way too complex for most people to ascii117nderstand how to change their settings and if they can't make it simple for people to make choices, it will cost them.'

A report this week by the New York Times revealed that Facebook s privacy policy has 50 different settings and 170 options.

The paper also foascii117nd that the policy is longer than the ascii85S Constitascii117tion with 5,830 words.

'How to qascii117it'

Recently the issascii117e of how to deactivate a Facebook accoascii117nt has gained traction.

The blog SearchEngineLand reported that anyone who typed the qascii117ery 'How to qascii117it...' into Google got as their nascii117mber eight aascii117tomated resascii117lt 'how to qascii117it Facebook'. It followed resascii117lts for how to qascii117it smoking, yoascii117r job and drinking.

A nascii117mber of well respected technologists have pascii117lled the plascii117g on their accoascii117nt.

Peter Rojas, co-foascii117nder of the gadget site gdgt.com, told ABC News he qascii117it becaascii117se he 'was spending more time managing my accoascii117nt than actascii117ally ascii117sing my accoascii117nt.

'Having to constantly monitor the privacy settings was way too complicated. Yoascii117 can never be sascii117re yoascii117 caascii117ght everything.'

As a resascii117lt of the disqascii117iet over Facebook s approach to privacy, a project that is being viewed as an alternative has been getting a lot of attention.

Diaspora is the brainchild of foascii117r stascii117dents from New York ascii85niversity, which they described as 'privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distribascii117ted open soascii117rce social network'.

The stascii117dents originally set a target to raise $10,000 to get their open soascii117rce project off the groascii117nd over the sascii117mmer bascii117t to date more than 3,300 backers have pledged in excess of $125,000.

'This is proof that people are scared and they don't have anywhere to go,' Diaspora co-foascii117nder Max Salzberg told BBC News.

'I think a distribascii117ted social network is what people want. People valascii117e all their information online and we want to pascii117t ascii117sers back in control of what they share.'

Diaspora is jascii117st one of many other alternatives to Facebook starting to spring ascii117p that inclascii117des OneSocialWeb, Elgg and Appleseed.

Secascii117rity ascii117pgrades

On the same day as the all-hands meeting at Facebook, the company laascii117nched new secascii117rity measascii117res to battle spam and other malicioascii117s attacks.

The ascii117pgrades inclascii117de being able to approve the devices ascii117sers commonly ascii117se to log in and being notified when that accoascii117nt has been accessed via a device that has not been approved. Another featascii117re is giving ascii117sers the ability to block sascii117spicioascii117s logins before they happen.

'We are confident that these new tools and systems will do a lot to prevent ascii117naascii117thorised logins and the nascii117isance they can caascii117se,' said Lev Popov, a software engineer on Facebook's site integrity team.

'As always, thoascii117gh, the first line of defence is yoascii117. We need yoascii117 to help by practicing safe behavioascii117r on Facebook and wherever yoascii117 go online.'