Facebook privacy settings review 09/2010

I was asked to recap the current status of Facebook security settings. New features keep coming  every now and then and the default privacy settings might not always please the users, this was the case with the recent ‘Places’ feature.

Taking control of your privacy in Facebook is a pain and takes a long time but that’s the price you must pay if you want to protect your privacy and still use Facebook.

The settings are spread all over the place and it’s not easy to have a clear overview of who’ll see what. But it’s still definitely worth the spent time to go through these settings, I’m sure you’ll find some surprises. I show here some example configuration but it’s best you think through what’s good for you.

As a rule of thumb: don’t put it in Facebook unless you’re OK everyone seeing it, or you’re sure that your settings are correct (but still there’s a change it’ll leak.. Sorry!)

Friend lists

Go to Friends page

If you haven’t already done this, create separate lists for our friends. This will allow you to later on decide more specifically who you want to share what.

You create new lists by clicking on the ‘Create new list’ button on top of the page.

SIMPLE: Create ‘DONTSHOW’ list where you list people you want still let be your friends, but do not want to show anything you do on facebook.

ADVANCED: Create lists for family, coworkers, friends, peopleyoureallydon’tknow and sort your people to these groups, and then create groups for people who you WANT to let see things you share, for example Show_statuses, Show_photos, Show_privateinformation

Now add the people to these lists. If you have hundreds of friends, it’s a pain, I know. Click on ‘All Connections’ on the left to show all friends and then click on the ‘Add to list’ button next to each name to add them to the lists.

General privacy settings

Go to privacy overview page. This shows who sees what in your profile. I think that none of these should be on ‘Everyone’ or ‘Friends of Friends’ as they might reveal your information to someone you have no idea of. So I recommend ‘Friends Only’ or Other, it’s your call. But here’s how to change the settings.

Click on ‘Customize settings’ button below the overview table.

Posts by me: Visible to Show_statuses
Family: Visible to Show_privateinformation
Relationships: Visible to Show_privateinformation
Interested in and looking for: Visible to Show_privateinformation
Bio and favorite quotations: Visible to Show_privateinformation
Website: Everyone
Religious and political views: Visible to Show_privateinformation
Birthday: Visible to Show_privateinformation
Places I check in to: Only Me
Include me in “People Here Now” after I check in: Not enabled

Photos and videos I’m tagged in: Only Me
Can comment on posts: Visible to Show_statuses
Friends can post on my Wall: Enable
Can see Wall posts by friends: Visible to Show_statuses
Friends can check me in to Places: Disabled

Mobile phone: Only Me
Other phone: Only Me
Address: Only Me
IM screen name: Only Me
email@address.com: Friends Only

I think it’s very important that you disable the ”Friends can check me in to Places” as it means that by going to a place, someone else is able tell all your Facebook friends that you’re there. That means anyone can check you in anywhere, no matter if you’ve been there or not. My guess is that location awareness in Facebook will grow fast with GPS enabled phones so it’s smart to be prepared.

Photos you’re tagged in – you might want to limit the changes that someone posts an unwanted photo of you in Facebook and tags you there letting your friends see it. That’s why Only Me is a good choice.

Review what you’ve typed in

Go to Edit profile page to remind yourself of what you’ve written there. I myself have the whole page empty except sex & birthday. However I only show month & day in the profile, not the year. Just to be on the safe side.

On the left you can go through your profile picture, relationships, likes&interests, education&work and contact information.

I don’t recommend you to share your education&work in Facebook, that’s what LinkedIn is for. Is it really needed to share that you go to dance every tuesday night from 6pm to 8pm and leave your home empty? Do you want to point out who’s your sister? Share your phone number. I personally don’t.

In the Likes&Interests page you can drag&drop some of the liked pages to be hidden (as in not shown by default, unless the used clicks at ‘see more’ link).

Wall

The checkbox to allow/disallow your friends to post on your wall can be found in your profile page. Below the ‘What’s in your mind?’ textbox and ‘Share’ button is a small Options link. Click it. Now it changes to ‘Settings’. Click it.

Three options you should be interested in:

Posting ability: Friends may post to my Wall
Who can see posts made by friends: Visible to Show_statuses (or Friends only)
Combine posts: Show posts from friends in the default view disabled

Writing status

Now you could write a new status, for example ‘going through Facebook privacy settings’. But before you click on ‘Share’, try the small lock icon next to the Share button. It allows you to select who sees the status. Everyone, Friends, Friends of Friends or custom. If you select Custom, you can set lists of friends (for example Family, Coworkers etc.. ) or individual friends who you want to show this status, or you can also let everyone else see it except the people in the ‘DONTSHOW’ -list, if that’s what you’ve created. Sometimes this is a very useful feature.

Photos

Go to Photos privacy page to control who has access to your existing photo albums.

Directory information

Go again to privacy overview page. Under the ‘Basic Directory Information’, click on ‘View Settings’. This page now shows you who is able to see that you’re in Facebook and so on.

My settings:

Search me on Facebook: Everyone
Send me friend requests: Everyone
Send me messages: Everyone
See my friend list: Visible to Friends only, Hidden from ListX
See my education and work: Visible to Friends only, Hidden from ListX
See my current city and hometown: Visible to Friends only, Hidden from ListX
See my interests and other Pages: Visible to Friends only, Hidden from ListX

(where ListX is one or more lists I don’t want to show this information)

Applications

Go again to privacy overview page. On top right, ‘Applications and Websites’ section, click on ‘Edit your settings’.

This takes you to page where you see what applications you are using currently. I have 6, and as I’m writing this, I actually removed one so five is left.  I bet you have more – they’re VERY EASY to install, it’s enough to click a link on your feed to see what your friend answered on a poll or so on. However here you can remove or turn off apps you don’t want to use.

Game and application activity: Only Me
Info accessible through your friends: All 18 checkboxes unchecked
Instant personalization: Not enabled
Public search: Not enabled

Applications, part II

That’s not all the fun with applications. Go to Application settings (yes, this is different from the application setting page above..). Here you find list of apps that you have recently used. I have the usual stuff there, Events, groups, links, notes, photos, videos, gifts.

By clicking on ‘Edit Settings’ next to each app you can decide who sees your links, events, notes and so on. You might want to limit some of these, my guess is that they’re all shown to at least all your friends if not also to friends of friends.

Block list

Once again go to privacy overview page and select ‘Edit your lists’ in ‘Block list’ section.

Here you can block other users if you don’t want to hear anything about any more (in Facebook, that is ;), you don’t want to get any application invites from or you don’t want to get any event invitations. Also here is a list of applications you have blocked – I have 52 applications listed..

Preview your profile

Do you want to see how does your profile look like to a friend of yours? Go to
privacy overview page, click on ‘View Settings’ (near Basic Directory Information), click on Preview My Profile. The same button is available also in privacy overview page -> customize settings page or you can also try this direct link.

Now you see your profile and by typing a friends name in the text box on top, you see what parts of your profile are visible to him/her.

Ads

Remember seeing ads telling that a friend of yours likes Britney Spears and suggestion that maybe you like her too? Would you want your name to be used to advertise something that you liked, for example Finnish Sauna? Didn’t think so either.

Go to Facebook Ads page and set this:

Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to: No one (click Save Changes)
Show my social actions in Facebook Ads to: No one (click Save Changes)

Notifications

You might still want to have a look at the notification settings, basically when do you want Facebook to send you a SMS or E-mail. You can do this at Notifications page

Remarks & Summary

When someone is waiting to become your friend, depending on your settings, he’s able to see when you make new friends. If your status settings are loose enough, your statuses will be shown on his feed even if you haven’t accepted his request. Someone reported that this actually is the case even if your statuses are not public so watch out..

As you see it’s not easy to find all the settings as they’re spread all over the place. Every time you post or do something in  Facebook you might want to remind yourself about the privacy issues.

Diaspora

Diaspora will very soon be a ‘New Facebook’: The privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network. I’m hoping it to come and grow big and allow us to have full control. Read more at http://www.joindiaspora.com/

Your experiences?

Did I miss something? Please let me know and I’ll add it here. Did some of the sharing settings surprise you or did you have everything in place already? What do you think of Facebook privacy, do you trust it?

ps. Now it’s your time to click here to share this post with your friends and help them to in finding suitable privacy settings for them! Thank you!!

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