Taylor: “The Majority Of People On Facebook Have Modified Their Privacy Settings”

Speaking at Web 2.0 Summit today, Facebook’s chief technical officer Bret Taylor said that people do change their default privacy settings on Facebook — most of them, in fact.

“The majority of people on Facebook have modified their privacy settings,” Taylor said. “If you talk to a college student, they know exactly what their parents can see and can’t see,” he added, as one of several examples.

Taylor’s response came as interviewer John Battelle had asked about why Facebook doesn’t share its data with rival Google Plus.

Taylor responded that there are issues with exactly what information Facebook has permission to share. If someone shares their email address with a friend on Facebook, for example, are they really giving permission for that person to take the email to another service?

To solve this issue, Facebook has a feature allowing people to tick if they’re OK with their address being shared. But Battelle had wondered if people really alter that or any other default privacy setting.