Reclaiming Privacy: Facebook Privacy Tips

Facebook is not known for its privacy. Recently, its Privacy Policy surpassed the US Constitution, lengthwise, according to the New York Times! Many people don't understand the extent to which their personal information is used and shared - Facebook's Privacy Policy states that it tracks every website you go to, not just its own. Here are some Facebook privacy tips.

Facebook Privacy Tip #1: Apps

Facebook applications are perhaps the worst way for your information to be put all over the internet and sold to advertisers. You might think that you've deleted them through the Applications link on Facebook, but unless you go to Account, then to Application Settings, and set your filter there, you will have applications running on Facebook that you don't necessarily want. When I looked under my own settings, I found 10 applications that I thought I had removed!

Facebook Privacy Tip #2: Personal Information

Facebook defaults to sharing your personal information, not only with people on Facebook, but with advertisers and other websites. It can also get your personal information from the cookies other websites leave on your computer. You can reduce searchable information on Facebook by going to the Search Privacy Settings page and set it to Only Friends. That will make it impossible for anyone new to search for you. You can also set it to your Network, in which case the people will be able to search for you, as long as they are on your networks. If you'd like to be unsearchable through Google via Facebook as well, under the same privacy page, make sure you're not allowing creation of a public search listing! Now, to actually edit your contact information privacy settings, you'll go under your profile, then to Info and Contact Information. For each item under Contact Information, you'll have to manually set up privacy settings, the most private being custom and "Only Me."

Facebook Privacy Tip #3: Tagged Photos and Photo Albums

If you don't want people to be able to see photos that other people tag with you in them, there's a privacy setting for that as well on Facebook. Head to the Profile Privacy page, and look for "Photos Tagged of You." If you customize it to Only Me, then no one except for you will be able to see them, unless you set up a network to have permission. If you have albums that you only want certain people to see, you can do that too by going to the Photos Privacy page. It will give you the option of changing the privacy settings on each album.

Facebook Privacy Tip #4: Use Friends Lists

One thing you can do easily to keep family, work and friends separate is to use Facebook's friends lists feature. By doing this you can tag friends (and you can use more than one tag per friend) so that they can only see what you want them to see, whether it be wall posts, photo albums, or the apps that you use. You can do this when you add people as friends; you can also go under Account, then Edit Friends, and add to lists from there.

Facebook Privacy Tip #5: Reclaim Your Privacy

Facebook seems to want to make it difficult to access all your privacy settings. I hope I've helped with that, but just in case, try running the open source tool at reclaimprivacy.org. If you follow the direction on the web page, it will scan your Facebook and tell you if you should change any of your privacy settings - and then it will do it for you!

Sources
http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/195884-2/how_to_keep_your_privacy_safer_on_facebook.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/12/business/facebook-privacy.html