I got an email from a Facebook user today who had noticed that some of their privacy settings had been adjusted. The new change was the removal of the online status privacy setting within the user’s privacy settings page. The online status has now been moved to chat toolbar. While you can toggle your online status on and off, the one setting that isn’t there is the ability to differentiate your online status for friends and those that you aren’t connected to.

My guess is that the online status has now been limited to friends only. Whatever the case is for the new settings, a number of users started a discussion about the new privacy settings. I have a feeling that most of these individuals simply don’t understand the settings. As the platform continues to evolve, privacy settings will be adjusted and for a few people this will create confusion. Facebook should provide users with a description on how to adjust their settings given the new modifications.

This also emphasizes how users leverage their privacy settings to have different interactions with different people on the site. Many people use the settings so that they can protect themselves from having unwanted access to their profile by people they don’t know. Have you ever been confused by Facebook’s privacy settings? Are there additional settings that you think would be useful?