Facebook officials discuss privacy with Schumer staff

Facebook officials met with staffers from Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office on Wednesday to discuss the senator’s privacy concerns stemming from the set of changes the company implemented last week aimed at broadening the social connections across the Web.

[Schumer and three other Democrats had sent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg](http://blog.internetnews.com/kcorbin/2010/04/senators-call-on-facebook-to-t.html) a letter outlining some of the privacy issues that accompanied [last week’s launch of the Open Graph](http://www.developer.com/services/article.php/3877906/Facebook-Opens-the-Social-Graph-to-Web-Developers.htm), the company’s latest effort to add a social layer to third-party sites in the form of a “Like” button that syncs with users’ profiles on the social network.

“We had a very productive conversation with the staff that were involved in working with the senator in connection with the letter,” Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of global communications, told reporters on a conference call. “We had a frank and candid exchange.”

Schrage said that the Facebook team plans to follow up on a list of points that Schumer’s staff raised about the implementation of the new features, particularly the concern that some users are bound to end up inadvertently sharing more information than they would feel comfortable with.

Though he generally stayed away from the specifics of the meeting, Schrage hinted that Facebook will roll out some changes to the new settings.