TMCnet News

Facebook adds privacy tools for mobile users [Telegraph-Herald (Dubuque, IA)]
[May 04, 2014]

Facebook adds privacy tools for mobile users [Telegraph-Herald (Dubuque, IA)]


(Telegraph-Herald (Dubuque, IA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) In response to privacy concerns, Facebook Inc. founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday unveiled new tools that will allow Facebook users to test-drive applications anonymously, and reveal far less information and better regulate how they share apps on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.



Unlike previous Facebook Developer Conferences, Zuckerberg said the social networking giant had no "big new product announcement or new direction." Instead, Zuckerberg said Facebook is focusing on helping app developers build a more stable platform for mobile devices that also offer Facebook users greater privacy.

"We have to do everything we can to put people first," he said, telling the developers that "people want more control over how they share their information, especially apps." Facebook users now can limit the amount of information that they share through mobile apps, along with the information of their Facebook friends, Zuckerberg said. Facebook users who want to try out a new mobile app also can log on anonymously across all of their mobile devices - without revealing their real identity or any information, he said to widespread applause.


Facebook also has made it easier for users to navigate through different sites on their mobile devices - booking a flight, reading a book or listening to a song, for example - with a new standard it calls Applinks, said Ilya Sukhar, Facebook's product manager.

Pasting Web links to various sites via email works great on desktop computers, Sukhar said.

But on mobile devices, he said, when "I get stuck in a mobile Web browser, when I get stuck logging in ... I can't get to what I want to do." (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]