Recently there has been great uproar regarding changes implemented by Facebook on their privacy settings and the sharing of personal information to third-party companies (read more about this). In this post I give you simple steps you can follow to take control of your privacy settings on Facebook.
I hope that your privacy is important enough to you to go through the whole process in order to learn more about how your information can be potentially shared. But if you don't have time and need a quick fix at the bottom I have included two tools that will make it for you.
Before we start there is a simple concept that we need to review. Almost all of the privacy settings are controlled by selecting who can access a certain type of information. Facebook provides the following options:
We will start by changing the privacy settings. Once you log into Facebook look at the upper right area of the page and click on Account. A drop down menu is displayed, where you can clik on Privacy Settings.
You can also go directly to http://www.facebook.com/settings/.
The Privacy Setting page is displayed. There you will see six different areas to control your settings:
We will start with Personal Information and Posts.
The Personal Information and Post privacy settings are displayed. For all the areas in this section you should select Friends Only or Customize.
Normally it is OK for you to allow your friends to post on your wall.
Click on the image to the right to see how your settings should look like.
If you click on the Edit Settings button in the Photo Albums area you will be taken to a page where you can set the privacy level of each photo album. The recommendation is that you set all of them to Friends Only, or Customize.
Once you are done with your photo albums and personal information settings go back to the Privacy Settings page and select Contact Information.
In this page all areas should be set to Friends Only, or Customize. The exception is the Add me as a friend area where you should select Friends of Friends. If you select the Everyone option you might be annoyed by requests of people you don't really know.
Click on the image to the right to see how your settings should look like.
Once you are done with your photo albums and personal information settings go back to the Privacy Settings page and select Friends, Tags and Connections.
In this section all areas should be set to Friends Only, or Customize.
Click on the image to the right to see how your settings should look like.
Once you are done with your photo albums and personal information settings go back to the Privacy Settings page and select Search.
In this section it is OK to select Everyone as the option for search results. However if you don't want other people to even know that you exist in Facebook change this setting to Friends of Friends or Friends Only.
You may also want to have a public listing of your profile. This means that even people outside of Facebook will be able to see that you exist in Facebook. If you don't want that just uncheck the box.
Click on the image to the right to see how your settings should look like.
Once you are done with your photo albums and personal information settings go back to the Privacy Settings page and select Applications and Websites. You may see that the options here look different, so I am going to explain one by one.
First, set Activity on Applications and Games to Friends Only, or Customize.
Go only into Blocked Applications and Ignore Application Invites if you are annoyed by specific applications that your friends use.
When ready click on What your friends can share about you.
This is one of the most dangerous settings regarding Facebook privacy. You can be very careful when using applications, but unfortunately your friends can be sharing your information.
Once you reach this page uncheck ALL boxes and click Save Changes.
Click on the image to the right to see how your settings should look like.
Once you are done go back to Applications and Websites and click on Instant Personalization Pilot Program. This is one of the new features developed by Facebook to share your information with external websites and provide you with a personalized experience (e.g. advertising).
By default you have been enrolled in this program, so go ahead and uncheck the box.
Facebook will ask you to confirm you are opting out of this program, click on Confirm.
With that you are done with the Privacy Settings section. Now go back to the upper right area of the page, click on Account and then click on Application Settings.
Once you reach the Application Settings page look for the Show drop-down menu and select Authorized. It will show you all the applications that are currently connected to your profile.
You may find that there are a number of applications that you don't remember using. Unfortunately the process by which applications are added to your profile is very subtle and sometime by just following a link on Facebook you add an application.
There are a number of applications that are native to Facebook and that cannot be removed, but go ahead and remove all the applications you don't use or need by clicking on the X buttons at the right.
Once you have cleaned the list of applications you need to click on Edit Settings for each application, to configure the privacy settings for each of them.
Once you click on Edit Settings you will see a small box that contains 3 tabs: Profile, Bookmark and Additional Permissions. First change the privacy setting to Friends Only.
Then click on Additional Permissions and uncheck all the options that may affect your privacy, such as access to your email address or sharing of private information.
Now you have regained your privacy on Facebook. We expect that in the future more changes and new features will be added and we may need to update this post.
If you want to skip all the process you may use any of the following automated tools that we have found.
Go to www.reclaimprivacy.org and follow the instructions to run this tool. You don't need to install anything or share your password. The tool will scan your settings and inform you if there are any dangers. If you choose so, the tool can fix any hazardous settings.
Go to www3.untangle.com/saveface and follow the instructions. You don't need to install anything or share your password. The tool will automatically fix your settings to make your Facebook profile private.
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Buen trabajo.
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