NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Facebook Inc. founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg addressed concerns about privacy during an interview airing on CBS's "60 Minutes" program Sunday and said he made the right decision by not selling the company for $1 billion.
Zuckerberg also revealed more details about a redesign of Facebook's user-profile page--a change that was announced earlier Sunday in a Facebook blog post and that is the latest effort by the company to consolidate its grip on the social-networking arena and increasingly become people's default destination on the Internet.
"I think we're going to see this huge shift where a lot of industry is...and products are just going to be remade to be social," Zuckerberg said on "60 Minutes."
Zuckerberg's comments came during a wide-ranging interview, covering topics such as competition with Google Inc. (GOOG) and "The Social Network," a movie which dramatizes Zuckerberg's squabble with the Winklevoss twins over the creation of Facebook.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based social-networking company, which lets users share messages, photos and other information with their friends, topped 500 million users earlier this year and has become a Silicon Valley heavyweight.
It has recently unveiled a new messaging system that many observers believe is aimed at Google's Gmail service, as well as a location check-in feature aimed at capturing a slice of the nascent local online-advertising market.
The site has faced inquiries in recent months over how it protects user information, with The Wall Street Journal reporting in October that many of the most popular applications, or "apps," on the site have been transmitting identifying information to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies.
Zuckerberg said in the "60 Minutes" interview that Facebook never sells users' information and that advertisers using the site never get access to users' information. He added that it is against company policy for an app to share information with advertisers and that Facebook will shut down the application if it does.
Zuckerberg said that, while Facebook doesn't get it right all the time, "it's something that we take really seriously."
"Privacy and making sure the people have control over their information is, I think, one of the most fundamental things on the Internet," he said.
Meanwhile, Facebook on Sunday unveiled a redesign of the site's profile page, letting users share more details, display photos and highlight friends--tidbits the social network said are like "conversation starters" that will let people tell their story and learn more about friends.
Zuckerberg said on "60 Minutes" that the new layout will allow users to rearrange the content, such as having their biographical information at the top. The redesign also includes a new section where users can list the important people in their lives and another feature that pulls up a history of users' relationships with any of their Facebook friends.
Zuckerberg also said it is generally agreed that he made the right decision not to sell Facebook to Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) for $1 billion in 2006.
While Facebook remains privately held, the company's pre-IPO stock trades on secondary markets at prices that give it an implied market capitalization of as much as $43 billion.
Zuckerberg said the company eventually may have an initial public offering, but he doesn't see that as the endpoint for Facebook, as it is for many start-ups.
"It's like you win when you go public," he said. "And that's just not how I see it."
--Scott Morrison contributed to this article.
Copyright © 2010 Dow Jones Newswires
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