Few days ago, Facebook announced its forthcoming changes to its terms of service, the new released propose is about a bold and creepy new feature: Some third-party partners are going to be allowed to access and use your Facebook data without any prior consent, which means Facebook can share your details with “Pre-approved third-party websites and applications”.
Back to few months ago, Facebook rolled out their infamous ‘Everyone’ setting feature, some of you might fine with it, but due to the fact of that the vast majority of Facebook users do not fully understand their privacy settings, nor do they grasp what “Everyone” means in this context.
So with this in mind, it’s well worth another look at your Facebook account’s privacy settings.
Click on that, it will leads your privacy setting dashboard. You will see there are a lot of options to check through, but this post will focus on these five criteria that I find people often time might missed.
Please make sure that your privacy regulations are set up accordingly. Block “all networks” and “friends of friends”, etc.
In the current Facebook design, privacy settings are clearly marked in the ‘Account’ menu that drops down in the top right-hand corner. In this post, we’ve linked to the relevant screens where possible so as long as you’re logged in to Facebook you should just be able to click right through.
1. Applications Setting
If you have been on the facebook for a certain amount of time, you may already approved a lot of applications for various use of purpose. To see what applications have access to what, use this options screen. You will see there is a list of all the Facebook apps that you have allowed to access to your data. Take some of your time to go through them and use it with cautious.
2. Photo Albums Privacy Settings
Yes, more or less, most of users are uploaded the photos to the Facebook. You know, each and every one of your photo albums has its own privacy setting, but the default is for it to be available to ‘Everyone’, which means the whole internet. So it’s worth for you to going through each of your albums setting and make sure that they’re set exactly as you like. You can change them here.
3. Who can See Who Your Friends are?
For privacy concern, you might not want people with on Facebook who are NOT in your contact list to see who you friends are, this part of setting you can get it done is on your profile. Go to your profile and look for the middle section on the left, you will see a block with ‘Friend’ tab on, click on the edit pencil icon above your friends list and you see there are three options for you to choose. First, you can set how many friends are shown on your profile (you can only select 6, 9 or 12 – not 0). Secondly, you can choose a list of friends to always show on your profile rather than just random ones. And finally you can choose whether you want it or not to let Facebook users who aren’t your friends to see your friends list.
4. Who can Search for You and Where?
Click here to get this part of settings done, if you selected ‘Everyone’, that means every of other person can find you through search feature on Facebook itself, it is also the place for search engines to access your publicly available information and any information you set to Everyone, which means if you check on the ‘allow’ box, you are letting Facebook know you want your profile to be found on search engines like Google. But it does not include anything you’ve shared with just your friends or friends of friends. If you don’t want to be found, then don’t check on that ‘allow’ box.
5. What can Your Friends Share About You through Applications and Websites?
Go here to see this screen, it is related to what can your friends share about you with others. This is an important section and you should pay attention to it, and you may not want your details used in a way you have no control over.
“When your friend visits a Facebook-enhanced application or website, they may want to share certain information to make the experience more social. For example, a greeting card application may use your birthday information to prompt your friend to send a card”, according to Facebook.
You can see from above image, Facebook gives you checkboxes to approve or disallow use of your personal information, your photo, your online presence, birthday and much more, go through it and think carefully of those information you want to share with others before check on each box.
Take your time and read through Facebook’s latest privacy policy proposed changes, if you have anything want to say or any feedback you want to give to facebook, go to their ‘Open Governance’ Policy page by midnight at the start of 3 April 2010.
Finally, be serious of your Facebook privacy settings, take 1 hour of your day and go through your comments, pictures, privacy settings, etc and delete and remove everything that can be harmful to your future life. If you are on a job hunt. Better even, you need to make sure that you remove links of those inappropriate pictures and comments BEFORE you start applying a new potential job (even while you are working).
Please always bear in mind of this – the Internet is a never forget place, when you post something, accept a link of a picture of you, or when you comment on someone else’s status or on their wall, what you post once, it will be saved on the web and it can be easily found by employers, customers, family, or friends etc. So heads up!
About Ann Liu
Connect with Us