Facebook Privacy Settings Guide

Last updated: March 18, 2010

What is the point of using your Facebook privacy settings?

Well, it really depends on what you do or don’t mind strangers and friends knowing about you. This information includes: Who you’re dating; what you’re doing right now; what school you go to; your cell phone number; home address; birthday; past and current employer among many others.

By making a few minor changes to your profile settings, you can make your profile much more anonymous. Remember the more anonymous you are, the safer your identity is.

Important Note: When you first open an account, Facebook by default publically displays all of your personal information to everyone on Facebook.

In regards to the most recent privacy settings updates, Rafe Needleman of cnet says: “I get the impression (the new settings) are set up to get users to give Facebook more permission than they should, to put their private data in the public sphere.”

The How To
Simply click on the “Account” tab at the top right of your home page on Facebook, and then click “Privacy Settings.”
There are four main sections in which you should look at to increase your anonymity. They are:

1.) Profile Information
2.) Contact Information
3.) Search
4.) Applications and Websites (formerly News Feeds)

Profile Section
What is this area about? This area controls who can see your profile and personal information.
In two these areas, you have a few options regarding who can see what is actually on your page. Make sure you review both the “Contact Information” and “Profile Information” page, as they both contain very important personal information about you that you may not want posted.  The best thing to do is change each section to “Only Me” or “Only my friends,” so only the people on your actual friends list can view your info, images and videos.

Ask yourself, does everyone really need to know that I’ve been tagged in a photo? Does everyone need to know I’m going on holiday in October and leaving my house open to theft? When it comes down to it, do you or your friends benefit from posting or not posting that particular information.

Contact Information
This area controls who can contact you on Facebook and can see your contact information (email, phone etc).
From this section, you can control who can add you as a friend from search results and from your profile, as well as who can send you a message from search results and your profile.

As a general rule, you should never post your home address, email, phone number or any other super personal information about yourself. Your friends should already have it, and if someone else needs it they can text message, call you or ask you in person.

Kiwi recommends that you put your search visibility to “Only Friends” because any other setting allows strangers to see, find and contact you.

Search Section
What is this area about? This area allows you to choose how and who can search for you on Facebook.
The first section called “Search Discovery” is very important. It allows you to control who on Facebook can find you.

Kiwi recommends that you put your search visibility to “Only Friends” because any other setting allows strangers to find and contact you.

The second section called “Public Search Results,” gives you the option of including or excluding your profile from public search engines.  If you check the box, you are essentially allowing the information you deem available ‘to Everyone’ to be shared over the entire Facebook network.

Applications and Websites
Formerly called: News Feed and Mini Feed Settings Section

What is this area about? This section controls what stories about you get published to your profile and to your friends’ News Feeds, as well as the people and applications you block.

Though you may not think these settings reveal important personal information about you, they do. Your news feed lets everyone know exactly what you’ve updated or added, like when you update your relationship status from “single”to “in a relationship” and when someone posts an image or video with you in it.

By default, Facebook allows everyone on Facebook to view everything about you on your news feed. To avoid everyone seeing and knowing your personal information, uncheck the boxes like allowing friends to see when you “remove profile info”, “remove my relationship status” and “leave a group.” Use diligence in regards to what your friends really need to see that you won’t be telling them via a message, over the phone or in person.

Also, make sure you click into the “Learn More” button under the “Applications and Websites” section to adjust what information your friends can share about you through applications and websites. By default, everything about you can be shared, from your personal information, status to photos.  By unchecking as many of those boxes as possible, if not all,  your personally information is further protected.

Recent Revisions
Visibility of friends lists and fan pages:

As of December 15, 2009, you can no longer hide your friends lists or fan pages.  Facebook now deems these as  ‘publicly available information,’ and you simply have no say.  This poses a risk if you are a member of a controversial or risqué group or page. Imagine an employer seeing that you’re a fan of ‘Drinking Games” or “Hot Girls.”

Privacy Settings:
Under the new format, Facebook has overridden user’s privacy settings to its new default settings.   Now, most data is set to ‘everyone’, and by everyone, they mean all web surfers. So by default, members’ information will be accessible and disposable to all – both on and off Facebook.  If you haven’t already, I suggest you go back into your privacy settings as soon as possible and ensure your data is out of the public eye.

Storage of personal information:
In a bid to comply with Canadian privacy laws, Facebook has made some revisions to their privacy practices.  That includes permanently deleting user’s personal information from their system after a user dies or deactivates their account.

Third-party software developers:
Facebook got a lot of flak for sharing the personal information of its members with third-party application developers.  And finally to allay the concerns of privacy watchdogs and the Facebook community, they are proposing revisions to its “statement of rights and responsibilities”.  In the block of fine print directed to third-party developers, it would read: “You will only request data you need to operate your application.”  In addition, Facebook is also mandating that developers clearly communicate to members what data of theirs they intend to use and how exactly they intend to  “use, display or share the data.”

Virus Alert (Updated: March 18, 2009)

According to Reuters.com, there is a new Facebook virus on the prowl that resets user passwords. “Hackers have flooded the Internet with virus-tainted spam that targets Facebook’s estimated 400 million users in an effort to steal banking passwords and gather other sensitive information,” says Reuters.com. “The emails tell recipients that the passwords on their Facebook accounts have been reset, urging them to click on an attachment to obtain new login credentials,” according to anti-virus software maker McAfee Inc.

Once the attachment is open, the virus will automatically download an array of dangerous software, including one that can steal passwords from your computer.

Originally published: July 12, 2009

Click here to see a visual representation of some of the pro’s and con’s of Facebook’s new privacy settings. You can also view Facebook’s official privacy guide here.