Toronto, Aug 28 - Over 200 million Facebook users around the world scored a major victory Thursday when the social networking site agreed to implement new privacy safeguards.

Facebook was hauled up before Canada's Privacy Commission by some law students last year for violating the country's privacy laws.

Indicting the networking site last month, the Privacy Commission had ordered Facebook to comply with its recommendations within a month. Facebook agreed Thursday to implement these recommendations to protect users' privacy.

'These changes mean that the privacy of 200 million Facebook users in Canada and around the world will be far better protected,'' said Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart.

This is extremely important. People will be able to enjoy the benefits of social networking without giving up control of their personal information. We're very pleased Facebook has been responsive to our recommendations,'' she said.

Under these broad recommendations, Facebook will now not share personal information with third-party developers creating Facebook applications such as games and quizzes. There are reportedly more than 950,000 such developers for Facebook in some 180 countries.

The site will retrofit its application platform to prevent any application from accessing information without permission from the user.

Facebook has also agreed to give users the option of either deactivating their account or deleting their account. If the account is deleted, personal information will also be deleted.