Facebook to offer more privacy control

Facebook Inc. is rolling out tighter privacy controls that allow users to decide which friends can see their profile information and other personal details, the popular social networking site announced during a briefing at its headquarters Tuesday.

Facebook’s 67 million users will be able to better distinguish between friends, family and co-workers and share information accordingly, the company said. The changes will take effect tomorrow.

Facebook also showed off a new instant-messaging, or chat, feature that it plans to launch in coming weeks. Unlike with other features on the site, users will be able to communicate with each other in real time.

Privacy has been a touchy subject for the social networking site. Though it offers more controls than most social networks, it has twice come under fire from users who didn’t like the way their information was shared with others. The most recent incident involved a feature called Beacon, which informed friends about users’ activity and purchases on the Web. Faced with a growing backlash, Facebook late last year allowed users to turn off the feature.

Facebook, founded in 2004 by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg while he was a Harvard undergrad, has evolved from a site that caters to college students to one that attracts people of all ages and backgrounds from around the globe. Its fast-growing population means Facebook must constantly strive to give users more control over the type of information they share with, for example, co-workers versus family members, the company said.

Facebook users can now control who sees what details about them on their profiles, such as their personal e-mail address or personal photos. They can also send messages just to selected friends.

The new privacy feature piggybacks on the “friends list” feature introduced in December that helps members organize their friends into groups. Users can create up to 100 different friends lists.

Matt Cohler, vice president of strategy and business operations, said Facebook was trying to give users easy tools that helped them communicate more effectively. Facebook now admits to missteps with Beacon, saying it rolled out the feature too soon and didn’t fix it quickly enough.

“With Beacon, we just screwed up,” Cohler said. “We think it’s an excellent product and we will continue working on it… . . We want Facebook to be a part of the fabric of how people share information in every aspect. Every way we can extend that is important to us.”

jessica.guynn@latimes.com.