Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that online privacy is no longer the social norm as users of social networking sites like Facebook become more comfortable sharing information on the Internet.

Speaking with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington during last week's Crunchie awards presentation, Zuckerberg described increased sharing of personal information with wider groups of people and businesses as a new “social norm,” pointing out the vast number of people on the Internet who post information about their lives.

More people online have become “comfortable” with sharing information about themselves—and their activities, habits, and purchases—with more and more people and businesses, Zuckerberg said.

We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.

Zuckerberg also noted Facebook's recent privacy policy change that made user's key information open by default as an example of the social network's willingness to reflect current social norms.

Zuckerberg’s comments come as his company has recently revamped its default privacy settings for Facebook accounts so that, by default, users photos, profile, and status updates are accessible to the entire Internet—including search engines like Google, which have the capability to store the information in cache for an indefinite period of time, effectively making it “immortal” on the Internet.

If users do not wish to share that data with the entire world, they have to specifically alter their privacy settings to block that information from being shared.

Last month the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a privacy watchdog group, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that Facebook is endangering its users' private data.

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