Today I want to tackle a topic that’s getting a lot of attention lately. Facebook privacy concerns is not something that you can safely ignore. Even if you are not really concerned about other people owning your data, it’s still a good idea to be aware of it.
Part 1: Facebook
First of all, you have probably joined Facebook to keep in touch with your friends. Now, each of us may have a different opinion about what friends mean, but in general you just wanted to stay in touch and share pictures with people you know.
One day they figured out that this was no longer enough, and they decided that it was time to share your information with the world, not just with your friends.
Now, this was not the first time they did it. In an old article by DailyTech.com, you can see that they were already trying to track and sell information about you some years ago.
By the way, I don’t think Facebook cares about privacy at all.
But let’s get back to one month ago, when they released a new feature called the open graph. The open graph is basically a tool for developers to track information about other users via api. It’s not necessarily bad but you have to be careful about what you want strangers to see.
Another feature they introduced is instant personalization, which basically shares information about you with third party advertisers as soon as you visit them. This information may include your current city, interest, education, friends, etc.
They introduced other features as well, like the like button, which I personally use on this blog. Not everything is bad, as long as you are aware of how your information is being used.
Privacy issues
Right now, as you read this, chances are that many services are using your information without you even knowing about it. Take a look at the following screenshot from the privacy settings:
That is how it looks by default. Needless to say, I have now unchecked all of these options.
If you take a look at your privacy settings, you can see which kind of personal information are available to the world. You might discover for example that things like your current city, videos, photos and other personal data are available for everyone to see.
That means that I (your employer), could visit your Facebook page and see you being drunk in a pub and decide to fire you without even having to be your friend on Facebook.
And the problem is not limited to what you decide to share, but also to what your friends decide to share about you. For example, when you join Facebook they ask you if you want to import your email contacts. That’s one way you’re giving away information about your friends to Facebook.
What you can do about it
If you’re really concerned about privacy, you should probably get rid of your Facebook account. They’ll not probably delete all of your data (it’s impossible), but it’s better than nothing.
I personally don’t care much about it, so I took a less drastic step. In my case, I went to the privacy settings of my account and I made sure that only my friends could actually see my photos and personal information:
You may want to do this for every section of your privacy settings based on your preferences. You can also preview how your profile looks like for a stranger at any time by clicking on “Preview My Profile”.
I don’t care about my interests being exposed to everyone, but I still decided to make everything available only to friends. The reason is that I no longer have only my information to protect, but also that of my friends’ who are trusting me for posting on my wall and being my friends on Facebook.
Ironically, you can like this post on Facebook if you want.