Yahoo's Privacy-Wary Facebook Integration

Yahoo is integrating Facebook across its web site. Yahoo's 600 million users can access their Facebook content without ever leaving Yahoo's homepage Yahoo mail or Yahoo IM. And if you're on one of Yahoo's sites and want to share an article or video with your Facebook friends, that's seamless as well.

But on the heels of backlash to Facebook's privacy shortfalls and its privacy settings revamp, Yahoo is being cautious not to surprise or scare away users. Yahoo is promoting "Yahoo Pulse"—the site's new name for its privacy dashboard, which manages profiles and user activity’—as the "central hub for people's online lives." This partnership is no surprise; last year Yahoo announced it would link up to Facebook Connect to allow users to update their Facebook status and access news feeds. This partnership takes the integration one step further—if users aren't concerned about their information being shared too freely.

I spoke to Yahoo's VP of Audience for North America, Jimmy Pitaro, about the site's integration of Facebook tools. He said that Yahoo wants to be at the center of users' lives, and now people discover and share content in new ways, i.e. through Facebook. Yahoo wants to make that experience easier, by "decluttering the social experience."

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