Facebook to Address Employees’ Anxiety about Privacy

Facebook Inc. executives will field questions from employees anxious about the privacy implications of a pair of features for spreading its services across the Web that prompted a public outcry.

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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in April

Facebook chief exectuive Mark Zuckerberg is planning to attend the meeting, scheduled for 4 p.m. West Coast time, according to a person familiar with the matter.

This person said the company isn’t planning to announce any changes to the features at the meeting and that no modifications to its product or policies were “imminent.”

“We have an open culture and it should come as no surprise that we’re providing a forum for employees to ask questions on a topic that has received a lot of outside interest,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement.

The meeting was arranged as executives have been debating internally how to respond to calls from privacy advocates, legislators and users for the company to rethink the two features the company launched in recent weeks.

Both are designed to spread Facebook’s features across the broader Web. But they have irked some some users and critics who argue that they go beyond how users expect Facebook to use their data.

One is a button that publishers can install to allow people to more easily share content with their friends on Facebook. When Facebook users click on the buttons, called Like buttons, the interaction is public, meaning other users could see that they endorsed an article or like a band.

Of greater concern to many users and privacy advocates, some of which have lodged a complaint to the FTC, is a test Facebook is conducting with a handful of sites that allows the site to instantly recognize when a Facebook user arrives and personalize the site with content from their Facebook friends. Mr. Zuckerberg has cheered such “instant personalization” as the future of Facebook and the Web. But users have hailed it as creepy.