Facebook is poised to make a U-turn on its privacy practices following a backlash from users who believe that the site reveals too much of their personal information.

In recent days, senior staff have held crisis talks in reaction to complaints about the way the site’s settings protect a user’s private information.

They believe that at best, the settings are too complicated to use, and at worst, they are designed to open up a person’s details without them realising it. Recent technical glitches that exposed yet more personal data have compounded the issue.

Facebook may now be forced to pull back from encouraging users to share more about themselves in public. A senior Facebook executive, Tim Sparapani, broke cover on the issue, saying: “We’ve heard from our users that we have got a little bit complex. I think we are going to work on that.” On Thursday, a Facebook spokeswoman said the company was “listening to our users”.

Privacy groups and regulators around the world have criticised Facebook in recent days for its practices, piling pressure on the service, which has almost 500 million users worldwide.

Sources suggested that a change to Facebook’s privacy settings is imminent, possibly even by this weekend or early next week. Changes could include making all profiles private by default, unless users specifically choose to open up their information.

This would be a big reversal for the site, in particular for its 26-year-old chief executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is known to have overruled those employees who argued that Facebook should make user data more private.

Thousands of offended users have mobilised in protest against the site, forming a group that has dubbed May 31 “Quit Facebook Day”.

The privacy issue is not unique to Facebook, and other technology companies have suggested that the rise of social networking has led people to reveal too much about themselves online. Google’s co-founder Larry Page pointed to instances when people have lost their jobs after potential employers found embarrassing details on their profiles.

“The thing about social networking is that there really is a ton of data that is being made public that didn’t used to be,” he said. “That has changed society, and it does cause harm.”

Vincent McAviney, 21, a student at Durham University said: “I’m at a Uni where a lot of people have gone on to do things in public life and I know people who some day may go on to be a leading scientist or doctor. They think, ‘There are things here that will come back to me in the future.’

“People are deleting their walls [personal messageboards] because they worry what people will write in it. You won’t check it for a day and you can’t delete it and everyone sees it. The thought that you can’t delete anything on Facebook is scary.”

The problems began in December last year, when Facebook changed its default privacy settings to allow anyone to see profile information, unless users specifically opted out. Facebook took this a step further last month, when it opened up Facebook data to third-party websites, in a move Mr Zuckerberg described as heading towards “a web where the default is social”.

The European Commission has called the changes “unacceptable”. Critics, meanwhile, said Facebook’s privacy policy was too opaque. They point out that that Facebook’s policy has 50 different settings, 170 different options and runs to 5,830 words - making it longer than the US Constitution. Facebook argues that the multiple options give users the maximum control over their settings.