David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News 
 
 to add Facebook’s comment. 
 
 Facebook may be getting a little push back from its users. 
 
 A new study by Consumer Reports asked what steps Facebook users in the United States were taking to “protect your privacy.” The answers were surprising. About a fourth of respondents said they lied: They chose to “alter personally identifiable information” such as their dates of birth. 
 
 The share of Facebook users who confessed to falsifying information, which technically violates Facebook’s terms of service, was a notable increase — about double — from when the same question was posed two years ago. That suggests a heightened level of vigilance not only about how much Facebook users wish to reveal to the world, but also how much they wish to reveal to Facebook, the omniscient observer. Consumer Reports, in its June 2012 issue, described it as “evidence that people are treating Facebook more warily.” 
 
 A majority of those who were asked what steps they took to protect their privacy said they tweaked their privacy settings to control who can access their profile page. And about a third of the respondents said they adjusted settings to make sure their personal information wasn’t leaking out to Facebook applications, like games. Nearly one in five said they did none of these things. 
 
 Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of the organization that publishes Consumer Reports magazine, has rolled out a petition urging Facebook to improve privacy controls and address user concerns about what information from Facebook can be shared with third parties. 
 
 Responding to the survey, Facebook issued this statement: “We believe more than 900 million consumers have voluntarily decided to share and connect on Facebook because we provide them options and tools that place them in control of their information and experience. As part of our effort to empower and educate consumers, we always welcome constructive conversations about online privacy and safety.” 
 
 Facebook has repeatedly said that user information belongs to the user, and that the user is entitled to demand a copy of his or her Facebook data. But the vast trove of personal data that Facebook accrues daily can also be leveraged by others. 
 
 Facebook applications can glean information not only about the Facebook user who downloads the application, but also about his or her Facebook friends – unless a user explicitly opts out. And every time a user visits a web site with a Facebook widget – a “like” button, for instance – Facebook finds out. It becomes part of the company’s data vault about each of its 900 million users. 
 
 In its study, Consumer Reports, the magazine once known for its reviews of dishwashers and station wagons, found that Facebook users revealed a great deal about themselves that could one day be detrimental. That information included posts that identified family members and chronicled their alcohol use. The ubiquitous “like” button signaled a vast array of preferences, from religious to sexual. More than one in four, the magazine reported, shared all of almost all of their wall posts with an audience beyond their Facebook friends. 
 
 Consumer Reports offered a box of tips for the Facebook-verbose. “Think before you type,” was number one. “Deactivate,” was number nine. ||||| In January, Facebook made a troubling announcement that it plans to 
 
 allow third-party developers to request access to the home addresses 
 
 and phone numbers of users. Despite Facebook's insistence that it 
 
 will protect its users, I believe this policy will place users at 
 
 great risk. That's why I wrote a letter with Sens. Charles E. Schumer 
 
 (D-N.Y.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Richard Blumenthal 
 
 (D-Conn.) to CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to stop plans for this new 
 
 third party access to personal data. Armed with nothing more than a 
 
 Facebook user's phone number and home address, anyone with an Internet 
 
 connection and a few dollars can obtain personal information they 
 
 should never have access to, including a user's date of birth, e-mail 
 
 address, or estimated income. In fact, by using this information, an 
 
 identity thief could get almost all of the data he would need to apply 
 
 for a loan or a credit card in the name of an unsuspecting Facebook 
 
 user. 
 
 And even more alarming, Facebook's new privacy policy would endanger 
 
 the privacy and safety of children as young as 13. Under Facebook's 
 
 policy, 13 million users under the age of 18 may be allowed to share 
 
 their personal information just like adult users. These younger users 
 
 are the most vulnerable to predators on Facebook and the rest of the 
 
 Internet and it should be impossible for them to inadvertently share 
 
 their phone numbers and home addresses with anyone. 
 
 The boom of new technologies over the last several years has made it 
 
 easier to keep in touch with family and friends, but it has also put 
 
 an unprecedented amount of personal information into the hands of 
 
 large companies and unknown third parties. It's important that 
 
 Facebook protect its users by reversing their plans to permit 
 
 developers to request and access this private information. It's even 
 
 more important that Facebook protect the children who use its website 
 
 by never allowing them to accidentally share their phone numbers and 
 
 home addresses with people who may want to hurt them. ||||| Facebook's privacy settings and users' concerns have been debated and analyzed ad nauseum over the past several weeks. With today's announcement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and company hope to put the talk — and the fear and mistrust — to rest. 
 
 “We made a lot of changes at the same time," Zuckerberg said regarding his company's f8 announcements of the Open Graph API and other new Facebook features. "A lot of what we were trying to do got lost. We really need to simplify the controls... The feedback we got from users really resonated with us.” 
 
 Facebook's new privacy controls are dead simple, as simple as a single button-click for sharing or restricting all your information — from your birthday and contact information to your posts and photos. 
 
 Now, Facebook will give users one simple control for all sharing. In a couple clicks, you can change all your settings, and the changes will apply retroactively as well. And of course, changes will apply to any new products that might be released in the future. 
 
 When you first open the new privacy settings page, your current privacy settings will appear; you won't be automatically switched to the recommended settings. 
 
 Users simply click one button ("Everyone," "Friends of Friends" or "Friends Only") in the left column to restrict or open all their information to those groups. They can also choose to make certain types of information open to certain groups, as per the recommended settings you see above. 
 
 "You can think of 'Everyone,' 'Friends of Friends' and 'Friends Only' as big buckets containing different groups of information," the new controls page reads. "With our recommended settings, your information is distributed across all three buckets." 
 
 While Facebook does recommend leaving certain information, such as your bio or status, open to everyone, other data should probably be more private, such as photos or videos. 
 
 The recommended settings ask users to make their status, photos, posts, bio, favorite quotations, family and relationships viewable to everyone. They also recommend making personal contact information viewable by friends only. 
 
 Granular sharing for wall posts will remain the same, and sharing information with applications will become even more granular than what we're used to seeing now. Users will still be able to remove tags from posts, images or videos posted by others. Finally, more granular, specific controls will exist for what information is shared and discoverable through Facebook's directory. 
 
 With controls this simple, it's hard to imagine users being confused or pundits throwing fits; yet we're sure not everyone will be totally pleased with these changes. 
 
 What do you think: Are Facebook's new privacy controls simple — and thorough — enough for the average user? 
 
 For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook 
 
 [sniplet name]
– How to protect your privacy on Facebook? For an increasing number of users, the answer is simple: Lie. A quarter of respondents in a new Consumer Reports study admitted that they “alter personally identifiable information,” such as birthdate, on Facebook. Technically, that’s a violation of the social networking site’s Terms of Service, the New York Times points out. And more than twice as many people are doing it now as were two years ago, when the same question was asked. Most of those surveyed said they protected their privacy by adjusting various settings, while almost 20% said they didn’t do anything to protect their privacy. Consumer Reports says the increase in people who lie is proof that users are becoming more wary of Facebook, and the organization’s advocacy arm is urging Facebook, via a petition, to strengthen its privacy controls. The Consumer Reports study also found that a large number of Facebook users revealed information on the site that could hurt them, including their whereabouts on a particular day or health information.