A few days ago I stumbled across an article on Mashable.com about important settings on Facebook. People can enjoy Facebook without leaking all of their personal information onto the web. Facebook has a very comprehensive list of privacy settings for its users. I am going to go over a few that I find to be significant.
I want to start out with the Instant Personalization feature. This feature allows third-party websites to access personal information through your Facebook account. I see this all the time, especially on movie and music websites. Pandora, Internet radio, is a good example of this. Today I was listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication on Pandora. On the bottom-left of the screen was “Kyle D. likes this artist.” Above the text was his Facebook profile picture with a hyperlink on his name. I clicked the link and was sent to his bookmarked songs and stations. For the record, Kyle was a mutual friend that I’ve never met in person. With this feature I was able to find out his favorite artists and types of music. I know many people don’t mind others knowing their interests but there is a feature to “opt-out.” Account-Privacy Settings-Apps & Websites-Instant Personalization.
Another setting I want to discuss is Public Search. This past weekend, I went to the Pittsburgh Auto Show. One of the cars on display had the car manual on an iPad. While my one friend wasn’t looking, I went ahead and logged onto Google and searched his name on Google Images. Sure enough, an old profile appeared with him inappropriately dressed. I enlarged the picture and watched the astonished faces of others glancing at the picture while walking by. After my friend saw it, he went over and exited out. This short, harmless prank took me less than a minute to find an embarrassing picture by a simple search on Google. This could have been completely avoided by opting-out of the Public Search option. Turning this off disables information to be posted on search engines. Account-Privacy Settings-Apps and Websites-Public Search.
The last feature I want to talk about is Checking Into Places. If users decide to keep this enabled, their friends can check them into places. This means that someone else can tell others where you are. In some cases this can be dangerous. If not dangerous, it can really invade privacy. I think the only people who would benefit from this feature would be stalkers and revengeful exes. Account-Privacy Settings-Sharing on Facebook-Customize Settings-Friends can check me in to Places.
At the end of each paragraph I listed exactly how to get to these settings. Next time your on Facebook, I would recommend a quick check on these features. To see the full list of important settings, head over here.
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