For a long time now there has been an issue surrounding Facebook users’ ability to permanently delete their accounts. While users were able to remove their information from the site, it wasn’t extremely clear to users how they could delete their accounts. The new clarification is a result of a complaint filed by the Canadian Privacy Commission.

As stated by Facebook, the changes include “sections that further explain the privacy setting you can choose to make your content viewable by everyone, the difference between deactivating and deleting your account and the process of memorializing an account once we’ve received a report that the account holder is deceased.” There’s also information related to Facebook Ads which clarify how your information will be used within those advertisements, as it hasn’t been clear to many users.

We also have explained in greater detail how Social Ads work on Facebook. Social Ads are sponsored promotions that include relevant information about you and are shown only to your friends. For example, if you become a fan of a Page for your favorite new movie, your friends may see an ad that includes that information.

This clarification about how information was used is definitely a step in the right direction. While it makes sense that Facebook would want to prevent users from deleting their account as long as possible, transparency is the best way to gaining user trust. While it required the Canadian Privacy Commision to file a complaint, Facebook has always been committed to protecting user privacy. For more information about the changes you can read yesterday’s blog post from Facebook’s Vice President of communications and public policy, Elliot Schrage.

Update
I should clarify that the new Facebook Privacy Policy is open for feedback and not yet approved, however I doubt that this updated version will have any issue getting approved by the users.