The Australian Privacy Foundation says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should consult user groups about the social networking site's privacy policies.
The Facebook privacy flap has deepened after it was revealed the social networking site has been sending personal and identifiable user information to advertisers without consent.
The site's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, broke his silence over the recent privacy storm in an email to well-known tech blogger Robert Scoble over the weekend, admitting he had made a "bunch of mistakes" and promising changes.
But that may be no consolation to the swarms of users who have pledged to quit Facebook, saying the site has continually pushed its friendships by opening up more user information to the public and advertisers without consent.
The Wall Street Journal reported that advertising companies, including Google's DoubleClick and Yahoo's RightMedia, were receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation.
The practice, outlawed by social networking sites' own privacy policies, had been adopted by both Facebook and MySpace but both moved to make changes after being quizzed by the Journal. The information was being sent to advertisers whenever users clicked on an ad.
Governments around the world are becoming increasingly concerned about the way websites are collecting sensitive information about users and then using it to target ads.
Last week, the Australian Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, said she would be discussing privacy concerns with Facebook "over the coming days" and asking the site to answer several questions. This website is seeking comment from her office over the content of those discussions.
In his email to Scoble, which Zuckerberg agreed could be published, the 26-year-old social network kingpin said he had yet to respond to the recent privacy furore because "i'd like to show an improved product rather than just talk about things we might do".
"We're going to be ready to start talking about some of the new things we've built this week," he wrote.
"I know we've made a bunch of mistakes, but my hope at the end of this is that the service ends up in a better place and that people understand that our intentions are in the right place and we respond to the feedback from the people we serve."
An online poll has suggested as many as 60 per cent of Facebook users are considering deleting their accounts over fears the site is making valuable personal data public and available to advertisers without users' consent.
May 31 has been declared "Quit Facebook Day", with just under 14,000 committed Facebook quitters signed up so far.
The bad PR for Facebook looks set to continue with the impending release of The Social Network, a Hollywood film produced by Kevin Spacey that implies Zuckerberg is an insecure computer nerd who started the site to meet girls.
The Guardian reported that a routine executive meeting at Facebook's headquarters earlier this month turned into an emergency discussion about privacy, with some staffers feeling that the company had "gone off the rails" and could be damaged permanently if the privacy issues weren't sorted out.
In a recent interview with Time magazine, Zuckerberg said people did not want complete privacy online.
"It isn't that they want secrecy. It's that they want control over what they share and what they don't,"
The comments may be read with a hint of irony for some users who have battled to seize control of their profile pages due to the sheer complexity of the privacy settings. The current privacy policy has 50 different settings and 170 options.
Further, some have questioned Zuckerberg's sincerity as he has continually played down privacy problems with the site and reportedly said in leaked chat logs that users who trusted him with their information were "dumb f---s".
Still, despite all the furore, it will now be difficult for many of the site's more than 400 million users to jump ship, relegating all of their photos, videos and connections on the site to the virtual scrap heap.
