It’s a convoluted mess of 5,830 words. Its critics claim that it is used to placate users while it continues to exploit them. And now, in a last minute scramble to regain the public’s trust, Facebook will be changing its lengthy privacy policy yet again.

Privacy groups and techies alike are scrutinizing Facebook’s most recent privacy policy, implemented in January. They claim the policy allows  Facebook, its partner companies, and third party companies too much access to users’ personal information.
Pras Sarkar, a Silicon Valley-based research engineer for Yahoo!, has been studying social networking trends for the past three years.  According to Sarkar,  in Facebook’s attempt to become the hub of the Internet, it’s sacrificing the rights of its users.
According to privacy groups criticizing the policy, although users have the ability to make their personal information private, it is extremely difficult to do so.  Facebook’s default settings make user information public, and users must opt out if they don’t want their posts and information to be shared.
According to Electronic Frontier Foundation spokesperson Rebecca Jeschke, teens are actually quite good at navigating the complicated privacy settings system. The problem lies in the fact that in order to protect personal information, one must be extremely proactive.
With over 50 settings and 170 options, Facebook members must specify both what information they want to share and who will be able to view it. Sam Parella, junior, attempted to adjust these options, but faced difficulties because of the complexity of the process.
“I was trying to follow the instructions that they had on the actual page about how to get rid of stuff,” he said. “You would think that if you wanted to control [your privacy settings] you would go to the page and it would have little check marks, ‘Do you want this website to have access to your information?’ and you would uncheck it and you’d be done.  You wouldn’t have to go through all these different pages and do weird stuff.”
In a statement given May 24, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to amend the controversial policy in order to quell harsh criticisms about his company’s invasion of privacy, citing it as an example of how he’s “missed the mark.”
“It’s a good first step, but it doesn’t fix all of the problems,” Jeschke.  According to Jeschke, one of the major problems that remains is what has been dubbed the “App Gap.”  Even if a user has not added a particular application, if one of their Facebook friends has, his or her personal information is still available to the application.
Though Zuckerberg reacted to the recent backlash by promising immediate changes to Facebook’s privacy policy, Sarkar doesn’t believe this solution was proposed out of sincerity.
“He may have made a boo-boo in terms of privacy, but that doesn’t mean he is willing to change his views of how people share information on his site,” Sarkar said.
According to Sarkar, the controversy surrounding the new privacy policy is not the first time Facebook has been criticized for its regard for users’ rights.
“They partnered with third party sites, and if you bought something on Amazon it would post that on your Facebook wall,” he said. “That’s a major privacy violation.”  
In some cases, personal information may be accessed by groups outside Facebook.  With the “Instant Personalization” setting, users may unknowingly give Facebook partners such as Microsoft Docs, Pandora and Yelp both their own personal information and information about their friends’ actions on Facebook.  This information would then be used to customize their websites while you’re on them.
Parella first became concerned with his privacy settings on Facebook after an incident on Pandora, a music-streaming website, that was a result of the Instant Personalization setting.
“I had noticed when I was on Pandora, information started popping up, a lot of people ‘liking’ songs and stuff,” he said.  “I was like, ‘Okay, this is a little bit freaky, I didn’t volunteer my information to Pandora.’  I wanted to know where else my information was going.”
Some components of Facebook that release personal information cannot even be adjusted under the “Privacy Settings” section of the website.  Under the “Facebook Ads” page, users must opt out in order to keep their information from being shared or used by Facebook ads and third party ads.
“Facebook benefits when users share by default because that gives them more information to use for interest-based advertisements, which help Facebook make more revenue,” Sarkar said.
According to Sarkar, Facebook has made its privacy settings complicated for a reason, with an excess of options serving as a deterrent for users who want to make information private.
“A deeper issue that needs to be addressed is that Facebook has always had the idea that they are making it the responsibility of the user to change their privacy, when it should be the other way around,” he said.
But critiques of the policy extend to more than idle complaints.  Some groups not only claim that Facebook’s privacy policy exploits users, but take action against the company as well.
Recently, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in combination with 14 other privacy groups, filed a 38-page complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. They demanded  Facebook to clarify the privacy settings attached to each piece of information posted and what happens to that data after it’s been shared.