Four U.S senators said the website needs to make it easier for its 400 million users to protect their personal details as the site opens more avenues for them to share their interests online.
Having built one of the web's most popular hangouts, Facebook is trying to extend its reach through new tools called 'social plug-ins.'
These enable Facebook's users to share their interests in such products as clothes, movies and music on other websites. For instance, you might hit a button on Levis.com indicating you like a certain style of jeans, and then recommend a movie on another site.
That information about the jeans and the movie might be passed along to other people in your Facebook network, depending on your privacy settings.
Facebook says all this will help personalize the web for people. It stresses that no personal information is being given to the dozens of websites using the new plug-ins.
However, it still means that information that hadn't been previously communicated could get broadcast to your social network.
And Facebook is indeed sharing some personal information with three websites that Facebook hopes will demonstrate how online services can be more helpful when they know more about their users.
The sites with greater access to Facebook's data are business review service Yelp, music service Pandora and Microsoft's Docs.com for word processing and spreadsheets.
Facebook users who don't want to be part of the company's expansion have to go through their privacy settings and change their preferences.
Senator Charles Schumer said the onus instead should be on Facebook to get users' explicit consent, a process known as 'opting in.'
'They have sort of assumed all their users want their information to be given far and wide, which is a false assumption,' Mr Schumer said.
Mr Schumer sent a letter calling for simpler privacy controls to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 25.
The concerns were echoed by Senator Michael Bennet, Senator Mark Begich and Senator Al Franken.
Facebook tried to assure Mr Schumer that its latest idea won't invade users' privacy.
'We welcome a continued dialogue with you and others because we agree that scrutiny over the handling of personal data is needed as Internet users seek a more social and interactive experience,' Facebook vice president, Elliot Schrage, wrote to Mr Scumer.
But the senator called Facebook's response inadequate.
He pledged to introduce legislation that would expand the Federal Trade Commission's powers over Facebook and other social networks if the regulatory agency doesn't feel it has the authority to require more straightforward privacy controls.
The political pressure could undermine Facebook's ambition to create a more social, open web that could make it easier to aim online advertising at consumers based on their presumed interests.
Facebook would probably thrive in a more communal Internet because it has amassed a huge database of personal information since Mr Zuckerberg set up its website in a Harvard dorm room six years ago.
If Facebook's plans pan out, it could change the way people think of social networking.
Instead of communicating on a closed website, Facebook's users could interact with one another over the entire Web. More sharing could spawn more customized websites that look different to each person visiting, depending on their friends and preferences.
While Mr Zuckerberg has likened his vision to an online nirvana, critics see another hole in the crumbling walls of online privacy.
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