SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) – Facebook, the world’s No.1  Internet social network, took a step towards opening up parts of  its site to outsiders yesterday by introducing more options  for user’s privacy settings.

The changes will make it easier for Facebook’s more than 350  million users to limit who sees their musings, videos,  photographs and other personal information, but will also give  them the opportunity to expose a wider swathe of their  information to a broader Internet audience.

The move comes as Internet search engines like Google and  Microsoft are increasingly interested in incorporating the  growing trove of user-generated content from social media  websites into their search results, and as Facebook faces  competition from rival services like Twitter, in which all  information is viewable to the public.

“We certainly want to respond to the requests of people to  be able to share information in all sorts of different ways,”  said Elliot Schrage, Facebook Vice President of Global  Communications and Public Policy.

Schrage said Facebook users will be greeted with a message  on Wednesday presenting them with new options to customise  privacy settings and directing them to a new, simplified  overview page of all their personal privacy settings.