Last week we announced that Facebook was changing their privacy settings – again! Well the new changes have arrived and should be active on your Facebook the next time you log in. The Instructions that will lead you through the new settings will be posted at the top of your mini-feed.
This page will contain a long list of descriptions of your privacy settings, what you can control and what is made public and out of your control. Click Edit your privacy settings to make the appropriate changes to protect your information and what you want to share on Facebook.
Take the time to make sure you go step by step. Missing one option or click could mean sharing more information than you would like. Make sure you visit your Applications and Websites, Block Lists (if there is a specific person you are hiding your page from), and your Basic Directory Information.
Keep in mind, while the ability to understand your privacy settings has been made simpler, the settings themselves have not changed. You are still sharing information with businesses and advertisers with every “like” you click. Your interests are still linked and by choosing friends of friends you are still basically allowing everyone to view your profile.
Also, one of the main gripes about the recent Facebook Changes was the new “Instant Personalization” feature, which provides information about you to Yelp, Pandora, and a new Microsoft service called Docs.com to help them customize your experience. The main issue was that it was turned on by default – and it still is! If you don’t want to share this information, make sure you visit the Privacy Settings for Instant Personalization and turn it off.
Although these settings will help you keep your Facebook Profile protected, it isn’t foolproof. We offer a Facebook Safety Survival Guide that can help you protect yourself and your children online. The best way to protect yourself while on social networking sites is to limit what you post and use your common sense.
John Sileo helps businesses tackle social networking privacy concerns. His clients include the Department of Defense, the FTC, Pfizer and the FDIC. John also wrote the Facebook Safety Survival Guide. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference or working directly with your business, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076
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I get asked how to delete a Facebook account nearly every day; whether it’s at my speeches, by my clients, or by my friends and family. It used to be that people no longer wanted the mundane information overload that Facebook promotes. But now they are looking at it from a privacy perspective – they no longer want their thoughts, pictures, and videos shared indiscriminately with people they don’t know.
The defections have been sparked by Facebook’s continuing march to sell your private information (with only your implied consent, i.e., simply by using Facebook, you agree to their terms) with an ever widening circle of people who are NOT YOUR FRIENDS (advertisers, data miners, and unfortunately, identity thieves). Many of the corporations I speak for have me include a component on safe social networking because the information their employees are posting (personally or professionally) are damaging their corporate brand and profits either through data leakage or as a beach-head for social engineering and other types of fraud.
In past posts, I have pointed to the tools at your disposal to tighten down your Facebook security settings. But suddenly, that is no longer complete enough for people, as Facebook continues to erode what little privacy you can control. Just look at the privacy related Facebook news in the past few weeks:
Facebook announces Open Graph, which shares your data with websites outside of Facebook to allow for more targeted advertising
Security hole: Live chat messages and pending friend requests briefly available to ALL contacts forced Facebook to disable chat
So for those who actually want to take themselves off of Facebook (whether they want to delete their Facebook profile or simply deactivate it), let me give you the basics.
First of all, you need to know the difference between Deactivating and Deleting your Facebook account (I will walk you through the steps to do either). When you “deactivate” your account, Facebook merely suspends your account but retains all of your data in case you want to restore it at a later date (and in case they still want to sell it even though you are no longer active). When you “delete” your account, your information is permanently removed from Facebook (eventually) and cannotbe restored if you change your mind. In other words, before you delete your account, make sure that you have original copies of any of the photos, videos, posts and contact lists in your profile. Once they are gone, they’re gone.
How To Deactivate Your Facebook Account:
Here are step-by-step instruction on how you can easily deactivate your account. Remember the difference between deactivation and deletion: deactivation is temporary so that you can reactivate your account if you wish to return to Facebook.
1. Log into your account and on the top right side select the padlock symbol (then “see more settings”) or the down arrow account symbol (and then “settings”). Either of these actions will lead you to the Security Settings page. When this screen pops up, click Security in the left-hand column.
2. At the bottom, you will see an option to Deactivate your account
Even after your account is “deactivated”, you can still be tagged in photos, invited to events, etc. Once again, you are still an active part of the social networking site, it’s just that you don’t get to use any of the tools available to active accounts (though Facebook continues to use your information). For a little additional privacy, be sure to “opt out” of emails at the bottom of the page if you don’t want to receive any communications.
3. The site will ask you to confirm your password as well as a “captcha” security word to confirm that you are a living, breathing defector and not a computer.
Remember, you can reactivate at any time by logging in with your email and password, although you must have access to your current login email address.
4. Following all of these steps, Facebook will send you an email confirmation entitled “You have deactivated your Facebook account”. Of course, the email gives you a way to reactivate your account – Facebook really wants you to stick around, as your information is what supports their bottom line.
If this doesn’t go far enough toward protecting your privacy…
How To Delete Your Facebook Account:
If you are certain that you won’t use Facebook again (at least with your current settings, posts, photos, videos, groups and pages) and would like your account deleted, please keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added. If you would like your account permanently deleted with no option for recovery, follow these steps:
2. Click submit to continue, enter your password, complete the security check and click OK to make sure that you want to continue with Deletion.
3. You will then be taken to one final page to confirm permanent deletion of your Facebook account.
Pay close attention to the second sentence. If you log into your account again (even automatically on your iPhone or in your browser or through an affiliated site like Twitter or LinkedIn) your profile will be reactivated.
4. After completing this process you should receive an email with a subject similar to: “Account Scheduled for Deletion”. At this point, you still have the option to cancel the request. Facebook will try to guilt you into staying (e.g., they may say that Joe Friend (one of your contacts) will really miss you).
Deleting your Facebook account is a very personal decision, but it is your right to have these tools for controlling privacy at your fingertips.
John Sileo is an an award-winning author and keynote speaker on identity theft, internet privacy, fraud training & technology defense. John specializes inmaking security entertaining, so that it works. John is CEO of The Sileo Group, whose clients include the Pentagon, Visa, Homeland Security & Pfizer. John’s body of work includes appearances on 60 Minutes, Rachael Ray, Anderson Cooper & Fox Business. Contact him directly on 800.258.8076.
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The New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. This is the last post on these changes and each post gives you details on how to manage these new settings so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.
What Can Google See? (Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines)
When you visit Facebook’s Search Settings page, a warning message pops up. Apparently, Facebook wants to clear the air about what info is being indexed by Google. The message reads:
There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.
While that may be true to a point, the second setting listed on this Search Settings page refers to exactly what you’re allowing Google to index. If the box next to “Allow” is checked, you’re giving search engines the ability to access and index any information you’ve marked as visible by “Everyone.” As you can see from the settings discussed above, if you had not made some changes to certain fields, you would be sharing quite a bit with the search engines…probably more information than you were comfortable with. To keep your data private and out of the search engines, do the following:
From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
Click “Search” from the list of choices on the next page.
Click “Close” on the pop-up message that appears.
On this page, uncheck the box labeled “Allow” next to the second setting “Public Search Results.” That keeps all your publicly shared information (items set to viewable by “Everyone”) out of the search engines. If you want to see what the end result looks like, click the “see preview” link in blue underneath this setting.
Read more from the New York Times article that discusses the Facebook settings that every user should be aware of. Be proactive about what you share on Facebook and protect your online privacy!
John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Speakers & sought after Identity Theft Expert after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.
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The New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. This is the second post on these changes and each post will give you details on how to manage these new settings so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.
Who Can See Your Personal Info?
Facebook has a section of your profile called “personal info,” but it only includes your interests, activities, and favorites. Other arguably more personal information is not encompassed by the “personal info” setting on Facebook’s Privacy Settings page. That other information includes things like your birthday, your religious and political views, and your relationship status.
After last month’s privacy changes, Facebook set the new defaults for this other information to viewable by either “Everyone” (for family and relationships, aka relationship status) or to “Friends of Friends” (birthday, religious and political views). Depending on your own preferences, you can update each of these fields as you see fit. However, we would bet that many will want to set these to “Only Friends” as well. To do so:
From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices on the next page.
The third, fourth, and fifth item listed on this page are as follows: “birthday,” “religious and political views,” and “family and relationship.” Locking down birthday to “Only Friends” is wise here, especially considering information such as this is often used in identity theft.
Depending on your own personal preferences, you may or may not feel comfortable sharing your relationship status and religious and political views with complete strangers. And keep in mind, any setting besides “Only Friends” is just that – a stranger. While “Friends of Friends” sounds innocuous enough, it refers to everyone your friends have added as friends, a large group containing hundreds if not thousands of people you don’t know. All it takes is one less-than-selective friend in your network to give an unsavory person access to this information.
Read more from the New York Times article that discusses the Facebook settings that every user should be aware of. Be proactive about what you share on Facebook and protect your online privacy!
John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Speakers & sought after Identity Theft Expert after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.
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During a time when rules, laws and privacy settings are having trouble keeping up with technology, Facebook is having trouble keeping up with their ever growing population. Recently topping 350 million users, Facebook is scrambling to satisfy them all. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, posted an open letter on the website discussing changes to the Facebook privacy setting that they are implementing to help make their users data less public. Take a minute to read the full article and protect your profile.
John Sileo became America’s leading Identity Theft Speaker & Expert after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by [intlink id=”15″ type=”page” anchor=”Contact John Sileo”]email[/intlink] or on 800.258.8076.