Yahoo! hooks up to Facebook blabberstream

A mere two weeks after criticism of its attitude to privacy forced Facebook to make major changes, it's back to encouraging users to publish more about themselves to more people for the dominant social network.

It has implemented a deal with Yahoo! to cross-publish updates across both networks.

"This means you can see your Facebook News Feed from your Yahoo! homepage, Yahoo! Mail, and other favorite Yahoo! sites and services," said Yahoo!

Facebook's News Feed includes users' status updates, events, changes in relationship status and some conversations.

The move signals strengthening ties between Facebook and Yahoo! They recently began encouraging users to mix their contacts on both sites to "build a more robust online address book".

Facebook may have been shamed into making its privacy controls somewhat simpler, but its underlying policy has not changed: it aims to have users share more in more places and so weave itself throughout the web.

Yahoo!, which once tried to buy Facebook for $1bn, is these days simply hoping to benefit from its huge user figures.

"Yahoo! is deeply committed to privacy – not just as a written policy, but as a fundamental consideration applied to each and every Yahoo! site and service," it said today, aiming to head off the privacy lobby.

"Yahoo! offers simple controls so that everyone can change who sees their updates, or turn off their updates stream at any time." ®