While this might seem like old hat to many of the fine folks out there, a lot of people are still in the dark when it comes to protecting thier personal profile information when it comes to Facebook. Yesterday, I received an email from my extended family on an article from the Boston Globe about the social giant’s privacy issues. Now the article does make some good points, Hiawatha Bray does not offer much solutions aside from the Limited Profile feature. So if I was just reading the article as a parent or individual, and I would be looking for more than the Boston scribe offered. I passed along a one-page sheet that I came up with for corporate executives to my inlaws who were on the initial email thread but figured a link would be good as well, plus it’s always good to share. Feel free to let me know if I missed anyting or if you found it useful. If you are a parent, you may want to check out this article as well on Cyber Bullying.
Privacy Setting Definitions
- Everyone – All information marked as everyone can be seen and accessed by anyone with access to the Internet
- Friends & Networks – Information, images and videos can be accessed by your friends as well as people in the networks you are a member of (i.e. Vistaprint.com)
- Friends of Friends– Your information and imagery can be accessed by your friends as well as their friends
- Only Friends – Information can only be seen by people who you have added as friends
- Customize – Allows you to give access to a certain group of select users
Recommendations on Settings
Settings
Upon logging into the site, select the settings tab:
Privacy
When you enter the My Account section, select manage under the Privacy option:
From there you will see the following categories:
- Profile Information
- Contact Information
- Applications and Websites
- Searches
- Blocked – with this tab, you can block specific users
Profile Information
Within Profile Information, you will be given a number of fields that you can select the privacy settings on. You can also grant or remove access of people commenting on your wall.
Contact Information
Much like the previous section you can customize the information shared with the search engines as well as your community.
Applications and Websites
In this area, make sure to click on what your friends can share about you. This includes personal info and pictures for Facebook’s third-party applications and advertisers.
Searches
I recommend turning these off
Blocked
In this setting, you will be able to block users by their email or user name. This is useful for customers who may be harassing you.
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