Facebook made peace with our neighbor to the north. Following a July report by Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, which pointed out several practices by the social-networking site that she felt needed attention, Facebook and Stoddart announced a new set of modifications to its user privacy controls and its developer application-program interface, focusing on the thousands of third-party applications built on its developer platform, CNET reported.

The new policy will require third-party applications to specify which fields of user data they access and will require users to offer explicit permission before an application can access any of their friends’ profile data, according to CNET.

In a post on the Facebook Developers blog, director of platform product marketing Ethan Beard wrote:

It is important for developers to have access to information, but we want to balance that with transparency and control for users. We have committed to making these enhancements over the next 12 months and anticipate a lengthy beta period, including opportunities for you to provide input, multiple blog posts and updated documentation delivered well ahead of time. Understanding that this will likely require modifications to your code base, we want to give you the earliest heads up that these enhancements are on our road map.

And Facebook vice president of global communications and public policy Elliot Schrage added in a release:

Our productive and constructive dialog with the commissioner’s office has given us an opportunity to improve our policies and practices in a way that will provide even greater transparency and control for Facebook users. We believe these changes are not only great for our users and address all of the commissioners’ outstanding concerns, but they also set a new standard for the industry.