CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has admitted the site made “a bunch of mistakes” regarding privacy, and has promised to change Facebook’s policy. The Telegraph is reporting that all major changes will need an opt-in after the site was criticized. Zuckerberg took to write a rare blog post and said he started the site so people could share and connect with others while having “complete control over who they share with at all times”.

He then went on to say “I am the first to admit that we have made a bunch of mistakes“, and that Facebook’s executives “can always do better“. This comes after the US Federal Trade Commission accused the site of invading the privacy of users on seven different counts. These include when Facebook changes settings that makes more user information visible to the public.

From now on the site will have to get users consent before making changes to their privacy preferences. This basically means that all future privacy control changes users have to opt in for them to take effect, and the site will also need to submit privacy audits every two years for the next twenty years.

It will also need to be clearer on its privacy and security of user data, and prevent access to content on deactivated accounts. New services can be added without users needing to opt in, but they won’t be able to take part without giving consent first.

Zuckerberg cited the Beacon system as a major mistake where it showed users friends their shopping habits, as well as previous alterations to privacy policies. The new proposals from Facebook are to be put to a thirty day consultation period, and are likely to meet the majority of concerns.

Chloe Albanesius of PCMag.com is reporting that the Facebook CEO would like to allow children below the age of 13 onto the site at “some point”. At the moment Facebook is prevented to allow children onto the site because of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This bans any website from gaining information from users under 13.

Zuckerberg said that if the ban was lifted they could look at what works, and said “We’d take a lot of precautions to make sure that they are safe”. Facebook currently deletes around 20,000 accounts each day, with some being for underage users. But unfortunately it is difficult to stop people putting in a false date of birth to open up an account.

But if Facebook were allowed to let younger users onto its site, surely they would be safer as the company would be able to set up safe guards to protect them. The recent survey also found that some of the young users on the site were not monitored by an adult. Take part in our poll below and tell us what you think.

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It has been revealed that someone called Pradeep Manukonda was stalking Mark Zuckerberg in an attempt to receive financial support to pay for medical treatment for his mother, money which he was willing to paypack over-time.

Pradeep turned up at the Facebook offices and at Mark’s home therefore a restraining order was issued, Pradeep also sent messages to Zuckerberg via Facebook, however according to TMZ Pradeep has now said that he will not contact Mark again.

This is regarded by many as a sad story, obviously stalking is wrong, however it is sad that Pradeep felt that this was the only chance he had to save his mothers life. According to Mashable Manukonda once wrote on Randi Zuckerberg’s Facebook wall saying “I owe my entire life to your service .. please help me, then I am ready to die for you”, despite this strange wall post he claims that he is a peaceful guy and was never trying to harm anyone, perhaps he is/was a little bit emotionally unstable.

This was revealed early on at the event by Mark Zuckerberg, here is a quote of what he said “Now I want to talk about some of the platform stuff we’re doing. There’s been this rumor that Facebook is going to build a phone. What a novel idea, but… no!”.

Instead it looks as if Facebook’s developers will be concentrating on their mobile apps and the mobile Facebook site, later today we will reveal more about changes coming to the iPhone and Android Facebook apps etc, so check Product-Reviews later for all of the up-to-date news.

Would you have been interested in a Facebook phone?

Source: Engadget

Mark Zuckerberg started the interview by saying that when they say, “building a phone” there are so many ways in which we can interpret that. The way I understand what he means by this is that Facebook are not building a phone of their own – instead they are working with current phone makers for deeper integrations.

Zuckerberg seems adamant that Facebook do not wish to compete with either Apple with the iPhone or Google and their smarphones running on Android. If this is in fact the case, then what should we make of the recent article on Bloomberg that reports that Facebook is working on not one but two smartphone devices?

The interview went on with Zuckerberg for over half-an-hour; so you can imagine how long it is, visit TechCrunch now to read it in its entirety. Let us know what you make of it, are they working on a new phone or not?