Facebook improves privacy protection on Canadian suggestion

OTTAWA, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Negotiations with Canada's privacy watchdog has forced Facebook to change its website operations and privacy policy to better protect users' privacy, Canadian officials announced Thursday.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which had investigated Facebook for more than a year on privacy concerns, said Thursday it was "pleased" with the decision of the California-based company.

The Canadian privacy watchdog had told Facebook that one of its biggest concerns was with the amount of personal information it shared with third-party developers who built applications -- like online games and quizzes -- for the popular social networking site.

In response, Facebook said it would retrofit its website with new controls that would limit the personal information that the estimated one million worldwide developers could access.

Another change will see Facebook make it clearer to users that there is a difference between deleting an account and making it inactive.

Also, the company will permanently delete the personal information of Facebook users who have deactivated their accounts

On Thursday morning, Canada's federal privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, said she was "very pleased" with the way that Facebook had addressed her concerns, according to a Canadian Television (CTV) report.

"We're satisfied that with these changes, Facebook is on the way to meeting the requirements of Canada's privacy laws," she said at a news conference in Ottawa.