Have you heard about Facebook’s New “Privacy” settings?
According to WordNet at Princeton University, the word privacy is defined as (1) the quality of being secluded from the presence or view of others and (2) the condition of being concealed or hidden.
As I’m sure most people are aware, the word privacy should never be used to describe anything on the world wide web. However, Facebook has implemented so called improved privacy settings which are not exactly improved for those who like as much privacy as is possible on any web site.
According to many reports this privacy policy change was created so that Facebook could work with Google indexing. I consider myself fairly web savvy, yet I still didn’t manage to get all of my privacy back the first time I went through the new privacy settings. After reading several reports, I rechecked my Facebook account and was surprised to find that my friends list and the pages I was a fan of was now public information, as well as my profile picture and I was now showing up in the search, even though I originally opted out of showing up in the search function.
I don’t like deceit as a business practice, I hope they rethink their methods, otherwise they will eventually destroy the business empire they’ve worked so hard to create.
How to review your privacy settings:
Log on to your Facebook account.
Look at the blue line that runs across the top of your Facebook account, and find the word “Settings” over towards the right of that blue line. Click on “Settings.”
Find the line that shows “privacy” and go over to the right and click on Manage.
You’ll see five separate sections under privacy: Profile Information, Contact Information, Applications and Websites, Search and Block List.
First click on the Profile Information and set each section to the option you want. I have all of mine set to “friends only.”
Next specifically pay attention to the section called photo albums, it is different than all of the rest of the settings, click on “edit settings.” This is where you set who can see your profile picture. I set mine to friends only.
When Facebook created their “new & improved” Facebook settings, they changed all of these settings to their new default setting of letting “everyone” see everything. So even if you had your settings just the way you wanted them in the past, you will now need to reset them.
Next go to the contact settings and check to make sure each setting is the way you want it.
On the Applications and Websites section, pay special attention to the “What your friends can share about you” setting. Click on “Edit Settings” and notice which ones are already checked. If you don’t want these things being shared, click on them to remove the check mark.
Under the “Search” section, first determine if you want to show up in the Facebook search. The next setting “Public Search Results” refers to your account showing up in a “Google Search.” If you don’t want your account showing up in Google search results be sure to uncheck “Allow Indexing.”
This was one of the main reasons they did the privacy switch. They want to have more presence in search results by having your information show up.
If you don’t mind having your information all over the Internet because you are trying to promote your business that is one thing. But if you are just using your Facebook account to keep in touch with some friends and family and you would rather keep your information as ‘private’ as is possible on the web, then you will need to reset all of your privacy settings, because Facebook, just opened your account up to the entire Internet.
This is Facebook’s second strike with me. If they continue to participate in deceptive business practices, I will eliminate my Facebook account, and I hope everyone else does the same, otherwise we allow corporations to take another giant step towards being a more powerful ‘Big Brother.’