5 Important Facebook Privacy Issues You Really Need to Know About
Important Facebook Privacy Issues, you should know about.
When a facebook friend of yours adds a facebook application, that application gets to view nearly all the private facebook info of yours that your friend can see. This is quite disturbing… as it means the application’s developers can also access your info, without you even knowing about it or explicitly allowing it.
Luckily there is a settings page, where you can disallow your friend’s applications, and their developers from viewing your information. I cant link directly to the page, so to get there, you first need to go to the privacy page:
http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy
Then click the “Edit your settings” link under the heading “Applications and websites” at the bottom of that page.
Then click the “Edit Settings” button next to the heading “Information accessible through your friends”
Now, if you dont want these random people accessing your information, untick all the boxes in the window that pops up. Then to make the changes permanent, click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the window.
Remove unused applications from your account
Another sensible thing to do to limit your personal details exposure,and to increase your security, is to go through the list of facebook applications you use or have used in the past, and remove the ones you no longer use. This will protect you if the developers of the applications you no longer use decide to go rouge, or sell their application on to other less scrupulous people. To do this, go to the following page http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications
then click the “X” button next to each application you want to remove access to your facebook account and personal information.
How to stop your name being used in Facebook Adverts Without your Permission or Knowledge
Did you know your actions on the facebook site, such as “likes” can be used by advertisers, to use your name on adverts on the site, to make it look like you are promoting their products. If you dont want this, go to the following page: http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?ads and change both select boxes to “no-one”
Stop websites from getting access to your personal information
Facebook has an instant personalisation feature for various websites, whereby they share your personal information with those websites, so they can customise what you see when you visit them. To stop this sharing of your information, first go here: http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy
then click the “Edit your settings” link beneath the “Applications and websites” heading, then click the “Edit Settings” button next to the “Instant Personalisation” heading, then if the checkbox at the bottom of the page is not greyed out, untick the box, to stop facebook sharing your personal information with those websites.
A final tip – Avoid Facebook application spam – Use F.B Purity
F.B Purity is a browser addon that shields you from potentially malicious Facebook application spam, and other Facebook annoyances, by letting you filter out specific types of messages, or messages containing specific words or phrases. It has received rave reviews in The Washington Post, CNet, PCWorld and Lifehacker.
Related posts:
- Facebook Purity Update – Added Block Application Functionality
- Permanently remove recent activity from being displayed on your Facebook profile
- Facebook Purity Update – Allows Iphone app msgs + Whitelist Functionality
- F.B. Purity v4.3.0 – Adds Delete Recent Activity Button, App + Extra Filters now work on Profile pages
- FB Purity v4.1.0 now available – BA button upgraded – App Filtering can now be turned off
