Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's sister tripped by privacy settings

While Facebook has made improvements in explaining the social network's privacy settings, Galperin said they remain confusing to most people. She added that with people using Facebook as part of their everyday lives, the consequences of fumbling privacy settings can become serious.

"Even Randi Zuckerberg can get it wrong. That's an illustration of how confusing they can be,'' she said.

The Menlo Park, California, company recently announced it is changing its privacy settings with the aim of making it easier for users to navigate them.

The fine-tuning will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook's more than 1 billion users during the next few weeks and continue into early next year.

The most visible change – and perhaps the most appreciated – will be a new "privacy shortcuts'' section that appears as a tiny lock at the top right of people's news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users can get answers to common questions such as "Who can see my stuff?''

But Galperin said Wednesday's incident also illustrates a general concern about Internet privacy. Essentially, she said, if you share information or a photo with your social network, people in your network have the ability to share that with whomever else they choose.

The mobile photo-sharing service Instagram, which is owned by Facebook Inc., had to answer to backlash to privacy concerns recently when new terms of service suggested

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