NETWORK TECH WORLD
Facebook Privacy,Getting The Hang Of The Newest Facebook Privacy Settings
Facebook
is your own personal space on the cloud. It holds a record of your most
intimate conversations, your most precious photographs, your deepest
thoughts and evidence of all the wild times you’ve had. This intimate
and private space would be perfect if it weren’t for one thing – the
privacy is illusory. Facebook allows marketers to mine your data to give
you targeted advertising. Employers and law enforcement agents can look
through your Facebook account, too. Worst of all, Facebook’s new Graph
Search allows anyone to search any profile for information. Facebook
privacy is more tenuous a concept now than it has ever been.
Facebook
defends the way it handles privacy by pointing to its highly
customizable privacy settings. As powerful as those settings are,
though, they don’t allow you to completely withdraw from intrusive Graph
Search inquiries. The most you can do is to control who gets to see
your photos or Likes. To a certain extent, you also get to keep
marketers out of your account.
Facebook
has been asking all its members to take the time to understand its new
privacy rules. The problem is that these Facebook privacy settings are
complicated and they keep changing.
There
has been no better time to review those privacy settings and to lock
your Facebook account down. The Graph Search system makes it far easier
for anyone to find you and stalk you. For instance, if you say something
in your account about the long mountain trail jogs you go on early in
the morning twice a month, it may be exactly the information a stalker
needs.
Since most of the wired planet is on Facebook, you can’t very well withdraw from it. Your only choice is to understand the rules and protect yourself as well as you can.
Since most of the wired planet is on Facebook, you can’t very well withdraw from it. Your only choice is to understand the rules and protect yourself as well as you can.
Settings for who finds you
The
top right of your Facebook page has a link called Who can see my stuff.
You need to go there and click on the link that gives you settings to
block the search engine from seeing your Facebook page.
The
Activity log on your Facebook page allows you to see everything you do
on Facebook all in one place – your posts, images, status updates and
the like. If you are worried about who gets to see a particular post or
anything else, you just need to look at the privacy setting mentioned on
it.
You
have some control over what your friends do with pictures that include
you. If your Facebook friends have made their photos of you public, you
get to opt out. If you do that, those photos are no longer viewable by
others. Opting out of each photo can take time; if you really care about
not being visible on your friends’ accounts, though, you have a choice
now.
Your profile only displays what you want to show
What
if you don’t want your birthday, your wife’s name or even your gender
to be visible on your profile page? If you fear being targeted by
hackers who can use this information the option to block it can be
useful. The About me section on your profile page allows you to keep all
these personal details from being visible.
Software to ensure Facebook privacy
A
new program called SimpleWash allows you to search for any potentially
embarrassing data about you on Facebook. If you are applying for a job
and you wonder if you have ever said anything embarrassing on Facebook,
this software will let you look it up. SocioClean is another program to
help you locate potential Facebook embarrassments.
If you don’t want Facebook to know where you go
One
out of five of the top websites in the world use the Facebook widget.
If you don’t like Facebook tracking you when you browse the Internet
while signed into Facebook, there are many software blockers available
that let you keep your anonymity. These programs – with names like
Ghostery and Disconnect Me – are browser add-ons or extensions. They
constantly let you know when they block Facebook or any other service
tracking you.
Facebook works with website owners to show you targeted advertising. When you visit a website while signed into Facebook, the website is able to instruct Facebook to show you ads for its products. If you visit Amazon to look for winter jackets while signed into Facebook, for instance, you could find that suddenly, all the ads on Facebook are about winter jackets. Unfortunately, there is no global button to turn off these ads. They are served by the advertisers and not by Facebook. You have to opt out of advertising from each company – one by one. The X on each ad allows you to do this.
Facebook works with website owners to show you targeted advertising. When you visit a website while signed into Facebook, the website is able to instruct Facebook to show you ads for its products. If you visit Amazon to look for winter jackets while signed into Facebook, for instance, you could find that suddenly, all the ads on Facebook are about winter jackets. Unfortunately, there is no global button to turn off these ads. They are served by the advertisers and not by Facebook. You have to opt out of advertising from each company – one by one. The X on each ad allows you to do this.
Facebook privacy from friends
Unless
you take the right precautions, the Facebook apps on your friends’
accounts are able to know everything about you. A new browser add-on
called PrivacyFix helps you stay clear of this. This company also has a
tool to help you control your exposure on Facebook’s Graph Search.
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