Facebook’s controversial new security measures were designed to increase user control over privacy; however, privacy advocates charge these changes were mostly an underhanded method to release large amounts of private data (mostly photos and fan data) to the public. Additionally, Facebook’s 350 million users must now go through a more convoluted process to protect their personal information from third party developers who lure users with their addictive games and surveys.
While the world’s leading social network recently backed down on enticing users with their deceptive “Recommended Settings”, there are still several areas where user data may be vulnerable to third party snooping. Here are 4 steps ever user should take to protect their personal information.
#4– Don’t let Friends Give Away your Private Information
Prevent friends from inadvertently giving away your personal details to an application on their profile.
How:
On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Privacy Settings
Select Applications and Websites
Click on the Edit Settings button, located beside the title “What your friends can share about you“
Uncheck every option under the title “What your friends can share about you through applications and websites ”. Click on the Save Changes button.
Why:
Unfortunately, Facebook users must worry about the bad habits of friends as well as themselves. This “feature” is touted as a virtue on the security settings page:
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.
However, virtually anyone can become a Facebook developer just by downloading the development guide, and it is safe to assume that not all of them are solely interested in enhancing your user experience. If you don’t specifically uncheck the items in the list above, they can be shared with third party sites by way of your friends’ applications – even if you have set the information to to viewable only by friends or yourself.
Note that all information you’ve specifically set to public can still be read and analyzed by third party applications and websites. But more on that later.
#3 – Prevent Search Engines from Indexing your Information
Modify security settings so that even your public information is not indexed by search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
How:
On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Privacy Settings
Select Search
Uncheck the Allow Indexing checkbox. The change should be saved automatically. Navigate to somewhere else in Facebook then return to this page to ensure the changes were saved.
Why:
Having your addresses, birthday and recent pictures available to anyone who can type your name into a search engine is a virtual invitation to identity theft. Stalkers would also benefit from your addresses, which can now be placed into Google Street view for a 3D walk-around of your home, workplace and places of leisure.
#2 – Restrict Profile Pictures to Friends Only
Some users have reported that the photo album for profile pictures was made visible to non-friends – even if profile pictures had previously been set to friends only. For optimal privacy, profile pictures should remain visible to friends only.
How:
On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Privacy Settings
Select Profile Information
Click on the Edit Settings button, located beside the the title “Photo Albums”
Find the photo album titled “Profile Pictures”. Select “Only Friends” from the drop-down menu. Click on the Save Settings button.
Why:
Many profile pictures contain friends, places and special events. This can be as revealing to snoops and predators as broadcasting where you go on Friday night.
#1 – Remove ALL third party applications
Do not add any games, surveys or other applications to your Facebook account. Remove any that exist and make sure those applications do not still have access to your personal information.
How:
On the top menu toolbar, select Settings -> Account Settings
Look at the list of applications. Third party applications will be denoted with an “X” on the far right side of the table. Click on each of the X’s to remove the applications. The changes should be saved automatically. Navigate to somewhere else in Facebook then return to this page to ensure the changes were saved.
Why:
Ok, sit down. We know how fun it is to compile your stalkers list and that you’ve found some pretty nifty wooden fish in Treasure Madness. However, you are also exposing all of your information -public and private- to third party developers for whatever purposes they deem worthy.
And who develops these apps? Sometimes it’s law enforcement, who are increasingly monitoring Facebook and Twitter communications for tax cheats and copyright infringement. It could be government monitoring for political dissent – Iran, for instance, has threatened the Tehran-based family of an Iranian-American blogger if he continued to criticize the nation’s governance via his Facebook account.
Most of the time, however, the application developers are simply rogue upstarts selling ads or are, more nefariously, data miners that sell personal data to marketing firms. Of course, that information is then used to build marketing strategies to make you buy stuff – possible even through Facebook.
If you still don’t have any doubts about the scruples of these application developers, listen to the words of Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga (Mafia Wars, Farmville)
Sound like the kind of fellow you want to provide with your personal details?
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Good entry. I’ll use it in the morning.
Thank you for this VERY valuable analysis and subsequent tips on safe use of Facebook. I have followed each instruction, and now feel much better about my privacy being being protected.
In fact, I will not use any 3rd party apps from this point on. I find Facebook very useful for staying in touch with out-of-town relatives, sharing pictures (including my recent 1st grandchild). I have nieces and nephews (and their children), cousins, 2nd cousins, etc. who I would totally lose track of without Facebook, so its fun to share their lives in this small way.
anyway, that was very useful information, so thanks again.