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If you’re a Facebook user upset by the social networking site’s policy changes pertaining to default privacy settings (making more of your personal information available to the public), you are not alone.  It seems that user complaints have reached the alert eyes and ears of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and they’re taking steps to rectify the situation.  Their claim is that Facebook, Inc. violated the privacy of their users when they changed their setting without clear notification.  And they’re looking to implement a plan that would make Facebook responsible for their actions and allow users more privacy where their sensitive personal information is concerned.

It started back in December of 2009 when an advocacy group called Electronic Privacy Information Center (based in Washington) filed a complaint.  This filing stemmed from an incident the month prior in which Facebook “recommended” that users change their privacy settings to make personal information more visible, including their name, gender, and photos, as well as their geographic location and their friend lists (amongst other things).  The idea was to prompt users to publish this information publicly so that third-party companies could take advantage of it for the purposes of targeted marketing (unsurprisingly, the scope of user information Facebook compiles is a serious commodity).

Since then, the world’s most popular social networking site has also come under attack for possible violations of privacy law in Europe because of the way they handle private information.  And although individual users have some limited options when it comes to setting their own privacy preferences, it seems that the governing bodies in both the United States and the European Union feel that more stringent default settings are in order.  In other words, they’ve made it their job to protect the privacy of users who agree to the default settings without actually reading the user agreement (that’s a lot of people, by the way).

So what is the FTC doing about it?  Their goal is to allow users more choices regarding how their personal information is displayed and disseminated, including the ability to opt out entirely and keep their account completely hidden from the prying eyes of third parties.  And their plan is surprisingly comprehensive.  First, it would call for action to retroactively allow users that signed up under previous, more stringent privacy settings the option to return to them (since they were virtually coerced into allowing more visibility of their account information).  Plus, users would have the ability to select or change their settings.  And there would also be a “Family Safety Center” to provide valuable information to parents and teens about the dangers involved with sharing personal information.

Of course, this won’t necessarily put a stop to Facebook’s current information-gathering practices.  They’ll still be able to tell if you live in Montana, Missouri, or Mississippi and they’ll know who your friends are and which products and media you “like”.  But they won’t be able to share this data without your express consent.  Although the FTC has already made similar arrangements with both Twitter and Google to settle such complaints, there is plenty of speculation about whether their negotiations with Facebook will yield the same success.  But considering how many users are upset about the privacy policy, paired with the fact that Facebook is still a business looking to generate user revenue, they may just have to bend a little.