Facebook, the social networking site, announced Tuesday that it would introduce more complex privacy controls, as well as a new instant-messaging service.

On Facebook, users can create an account and personalize it according to their will, posting photos and writing information about themselves, in order to find similar people or just for fun with their friends in the real world. From now on, they will be given more freedom of choice. They will be able to create more groups, such as “Friends,” “Friends of Friends,” “Family,” or “Only Me,” and to control who can see certain photos or information. Facebook added the ability to create custom groups of friends in December, but users only had the option to send a message to a whole group until now.

Company executives have explained that, as the Facebook community, currently counting around 67 million users, is continually growing, there is constant need of evolution. That is why they are always struggling to discover new applications and functions that offer users more freedom of choice and are also easy to work with.

“It manifests itself in two parts in the product. Tools have to be powerful for giving granular control, but on the other hand you have to make sure they are easy to use and simple and intuitive,” Matt Cohler, vice president of strategy and business operations, explained, according to CNet News. "Keeping those two things together has been something we've always thought about."

At the end of last year, Facebook was involved in a scandal regarding Beacon, an ad platform that monitored the user’s Web surfing habits. Many users have complained about privacy violation and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg did not solve the problem soon enough, a situation for which he apologized later.

The company argued that Beacon was a harmless way to keep one’s friends informed of one’s favorite websites, but it eventually backed down, after receiving a petition against Beacon signed by 50,000 Facebook users.

The instant-messaging service, which the company also promoted Tuesday, will be available in two weeks. It does not require any download and will work with all browsers.