Facebook, the social networking world number one, took a step forward on Wednesday to open some parts of your site to strangers, to introduce more options in the tools of user privacy.

The changes make it easier for more than 350 million users of Facebook limit who sees your thoughts, videos, photos and other personal information, but also given the opportunity to show their information to a wider audience.

The initiative comes as Internet search engines like Google and Microsoft are increasingly interested in incorporating the growing user-generated content on social pages in its search results, and when Facebook is facing competition from rival services like Twitter, in the that all information is visible.

"Of course we want to respond to requests from the public to share information in all sorts of ways," said Elliot Schrage, vice president of Global Communications and Public Policy at Facebook.

Schrage said that Facebook users would be greeted on Wednesday with a message that presents new options for customizing your privacy.

The changes will not affect in any way Facebook policies that refer to the type of user information is shared with advertisers, he said.

Earlier this year, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said that Facebook lacked certain safeguards to prevent unauthorized access to personal information of users by third party developers and manufacturers of games and challenges. Facebook addressed these concerns in August.

The new privacy features will make it easier for a Facebook user limit certain messages to some of his friends, like family, not colleagues.

Users will also have the ability to spread messages beyond the borders of Facebook, to be visible across the web. Facebook began testing the feature of public message with a limited group of users during the summer.

In October, Microsoft announced plans to incorporate labeled Facebook messages to the general public in their search results.

Google recently announced its initiative to incorporate certain Facebook data into your new product, a search engine in real time, although data are limited to special public profile page on Facebook, created by famous companies.