The social networking site is to introduce more friendly privacy tools in the next few weeks, Tim Sparapani, Facebook's head of public policy said in a US radio interview.
The announcement comes less than a week after Facebook added new security tools to prevent hacking and held an emergency staff meeting to discuss the company's policy on privacy.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been the driving force behind encouraging users of the social networking site to be more open with their data.
But civil rights groups, US, Canadian and European authorities have increasingly criticised Facebook's privacy policies, and now a change in default settings could be on the cards, according to US reports.
Facebook's announcement that simpler controls are on the way comes just a day after rival MySpace announced plans to give users the ability to select one privacy setting for all personal information.
MySpace users will be able to choose between making information available to friends only, anyone in the social network or anyone on the internet over 18.
This article was originally published by Computer Weekly