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In the first posting on this topic Facebook privacy I covered your profile privacy, address, phone number and availability for searching options in the public domain. There are three more topics I feel are important when taking the reins for your privacy. Keep in mind once something is out there mistakenly or you posted a statement that you found out was misinterpreted, there are no second chances. The delete button can not take back the impressions it made on the few or many people that viewed it.

4. Photo Albums

You may have set photos of you to be private, but what about your photo albums? Many people forget that the albums entitled “Profile Pictures,” “Mobile Uploads” and “Wall Photos” are usually visible by everyone, unless you edit the privacy settings.

Change this privacy setting by going to “Privacy Settings” and choose “Profile Information.” Scroll about halfway down, and you’ll see the “Photo Albums” option. Click “Edit Settings.” Here you’ll see each of your photo albums, and each of their assigned privacy settings.

Remember, you can choose the “Custom” option if there’s a person or group of people (list you have created) you want exempt from viewing your album. And, if you’re ever concerned that you’ve chosen the wrong privacy setting, you can preview how your profile is seen by individual people. To do this, visit your “Profile Information” page of your “Privacy Settings.” At the top right corner is the option to “Preview My Profile.” Enter in someone’s name, and you can see which parts of your profile are visible, and which ones are not.

An additional security feature I recommend has to do with videos and tagging of photos. I was shocked one day when a friend mentioned she saw a photo of me at an event the other night on Facebook and I had never told her I had gone to the event . What she saw was a tagged photo posted by another friend (these two friends did not know of one another) of me at the event on Facebook. The tagged photo had shown up in status updates. There was nothing wrong with this, but it is shocking when people find out things you haven’t even shared with them.

This setting is in another area of “Privacy Settings.” Go to “Privacy Settings” and click on “Friends, Tags, and Connections.” Set “Photos and Videos of Me” to “Friends Only” or use your lists to allow or block certain users.

5. Third Party Personalization

In April this year Facebook released two new personalization features that allows third-parties to track Facebook users unless you opt out.

* Social Plugins
* Instant Personalization

Social Plugins
Social plugins add Facebook controls to non-Facebook sites, such as a “Like” button and comments. There’s no way to opt out of social plugins: Once a website adds a social plugin, everyone sees it, no matter what. What you can do is not interact with a “Like” or other Facebook feature on an external site and better yet – log out of Facebook before you visit other sites.

Instant Personalization
Instant personalization makes your public Facebook data currently available to three companies: Pandora, Yelp and Docs.com. This list of companies using instant personalization will grow, as this is a newly released feature in April 2010. Keep in mind what Facebook defines as public information. Facebook considers your name, profile picture, gender, and connections as information anyone can view. So no permission is needed for this information from an outside party.

To access non-public information, the nonFacebook website is required to ask for you or your friend’s explicit permission. They do not have to ask to access this “public” information. It is what the internet calls an opt-out versus opt-in default setup. The purpose is for the nonFacebook website to provide you with content customized for your likes based on your Facebook data. For example, Pandora is a music website and they will now be able to give you music station suggestions based on bands or artists you’ve “liked” on Facebook and across the web. You’ll be able to see which of your friends likes similar music and check out what other music they like and have in their collections.

Disabling “instant personalization”

To disable this ability for third parties go to Facebook “Privacy settings.” Then click on “Applications and Websites.” The last option is instant personalization – now in pilot phase. There is a check box that you need to uncheck. Notice the very light fine print – it is telling you that even if you uncheck the box, that if you are a friend of someone that is on the partner website they may share information about you.

If you want to 100% block the chance outside parties use your Facebook data, you need to actually block the applications. To do this you must view each company’s Facebook page and under their logo/photo area on upper left click on link “Block Application”. Here are the only three external websites and their Facebook pages where you can block them using your data from Facebook.

Microsoft Docs http://www.facebook.com/#!/docs

Pandora http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=139475280761

Yelp http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=97534753161

6. Facebook Privacy Settings: Application Settings

Applications are add-ons that have interactivity to them, either extending your profile, extending how you can use Facebook or help interact with others. Popular ones are bumper sticker, daily horoscope, or Facebook mobile, and many more. There are also business Facebook applications that can add professionalism to your Facebook profile: extended info, my LinkedIn, and networkedBlogs.

Challenge is your information may be secure, but much of your information can still be accessed through applications that your friends use. Yes, this is where it gets confusing. Now you understand the hours I spent deciphering the privacy settings.

For example, lets say your friend uses a greeting card application. This application can access the information you’ve made publicly available (such as your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, any extended info you filled in using an application and business pages), unless you change your settings.

Go to your “Privacy Settings” and choose “Applications and Websites.” Then, click the “Edit Settings” button next to “What your friends can share about you.” This page will show you all the options that your friends’ applications can access. Check or uncheck them based on what you’re willing to share. Remember, the term “Friends” in Facebook refers to all your connections and these may be coworkers, clients, industry experts in your field.

Also, it is a good idea to make sure you yourself only have active the applications you want active. The catch is, once you authorize an application, you’re telling it that it’s okay to access any information associated with your account that it requires to work. While some developers may only pull what’s actually required, many others just pull in everything they can.

To check any that are active, go to your “Privacy Settings” page and choose “Applications and Websites.” Then, click the “Learn More” button next to “What you share.” Follow the link at the bottom of the page that says, “You can view the full list of Applications you have authorized on this page.”

Here, you can view which applications you are using, delete any you no longer use and edit the settings for each individual one.

One Additional Help for Teens

I highly recommend going through all of these privacy settings with your teen and at least change their privacy settings to “Friends Only.” That will prevent some of the potential security risks from occurring. I also recommend showing them how to block a user. Teens are on Facebook far more than adults (at least in my house). The chances that someone is bugging or irritating them is much greater. All they need to do is block that individual user to put an end to the interference. Go under “Privacy Settings” and click on “Block List.” They can enter the name and email there to block. 7BRM4EC4UKCQ

Last Bit of Advice

At least every other month go into Facebook privacy settings and check that no new settings have appeared. Do this also with your teen. My teenager knows that it is a privilege for her to have a Facebook account and to keep that privilege I must be allowed to go over privacy settings regularly with her. Sitting down with her after treating her to a Starbucks helps make this a smooth interaction.

I am doing research for my webinar coming up this week on Facebook.  Nothing like teaching a subject to improve your knowledge base.  I have spent hours upon hours reading up on Facebook privacy.  My head is spinning.  It has inspired me to do a much longer than normal blog posting on the critical privacy issues I want to alert others to.  Also, because there is so much you really need to understand for privacy, I am splitting this into two postings: Part I and Part II.

To get started, I want to share real-life situations that have happened with Facebook.

A business professional was visiting a former employer and chatting with friends in person and one of them asked her about an upcoming trip to Florida.  She had not even told her kids yet.  She was shocked.  She had held off on saying anything because she was a new hire at another company and was waiting for the right opportunity to say anything.  She found out the former co-worker and her husband were both part of the same regional network on Facebook, and that was how the former co-worked obtained access to his personal page. Her husband immediately changed his privacy settings, but it could have cost her job.

A New Albany woman’s house was after she posted a message that she and her fiancee would be out for the evening.  One of the intruders had added her as a friend on Facebook

An employee bought tickets online for a movie and posted an update on their Facebook.  The timestamp on the update was during work hours.  The employee was reprimanded.

Student was kicked out of the National Honor Society after creating a Facebook page that criticized the school.

Teenager fired from job after calling job boring on Facebook.  The teen did not name the company in their comment, but coworkers saw the posting and knew what it was referring to.

Do I have your attention?!  Privacy is a huge concern for anyone with a Facebook account.

Important, once you open an account, you need to take responsibility for your privacy.  I hear people often say – I have an account, but barely use it.  That will not fly when you find out your name ends up associated with …

I do recommend you go through all your privacy settings and think carefully about what you are aiming to achieve on Facebook – make new connections or keep in touch with your current connections (friends and family).  Also, there are many cases of people getting fired, kicked out of school, being passed over for a new job because of something they said or shared or a photo on Facebook.

Golden Rule: if your mom, boss or future boss can not read it, don’t post it up.  Don’t assume once photos or comments are deleted they are not saved somewhere.  The techie term is the data may be inactivated, but in most cases it is not deleted.  Since the beginning of the internet companies have been saving copies of the internet and creating huge databases for employers looking to hire to go through and search on possible candidates.  We know that roughly 40% of employers right now check on Facebook before making a hiring decision.  If they could read all your deleted postings and pictures would you be shaking right now?

Below I am outlining six significant privacy concerns. These hold true as top concerns too if you have a teenager in the house.  It is hard for teens to understand or appreciate the big picture and how some of these may impact their future significantly in ten or twenty years.  Do not assume they have set their privacy settings appropriately.  Sit down with them and go through these with them.

1. Who Can See What on Your Profile

A common mistake for new users is to assume their profile information is viewable to only “Friends.”  Facebook default is for “Everyone” which means the public can view information on your profile unless it is changed through your privacy settings.  A key piece of information you want to in all cases protect is your birthday.  Birthdays are used by criminals for identity theft. Make sure it is blocked so only yourself can see it.

To change any privacy settings go to the upper right hand side of Facebook page and see drop down under “Account.”  Select “Privacy Settings” and from the list on the privacy settings page click on “Profile.”  This takes you to a page that you can change who can view each piece of profile information including your birthday.  Change birthday setting to “Only Me.”

To show only month and day for birthday – select “Info” tab under your name in top middle of the page.  Across from “About Me” you can see Edit option.  Click on that and all these fields are now editable and one option across from “Birthday” is how to show your birthday.

Before making any changes to your privacy settings, you may want to create some lists for all your contacts (Facebook lumps together and calls them “Friends”) and allow access to different profile pieces based on your lists.  This is my preference.  I recommend at least 5 lists: two lists for friends (close friends and more distant friends), two lists for work (those you have met or work with and those that are good contacts but you have never met) and then family.  You may want to make two family lists too – my family is huge and not truly knowing someone when talking privacy is a consideration here.

If you do not have the time to make lists now, the best thing is to change in for your privacy settings all your profile information to allow “Only Friends.” Using any other broader option allows your profile information to be viewed by people you do not know.  Even “Friends of Friends” opens up your profile information to thousands of people you do not know, and “My Networks and Friends” opens you up to anyone in your city, your high school, your college, a professional organization you listed, etc. These are networks you have joined and include the thousands of people that are members of them.

2: Who Can See Your Address and Phone Number

Did you list your address and phone number on Facebook? While this may seem like a slick feature, you do not want people you don’t know to have this information.  My policy is if someone needs it, they can email me and ask for it, I would rather error on safety.  Address and phone number data is used for home burglaries.  All a criminal needs is an innocent sounding update on your page, a tweet, or your blog about getting away for a few days and you have given them all they need to break in while you are away. Go to “Privacy Settings” and click on “Contact Information.”  I go serious with security and have my phone number and address set to “Only Me”.  Again, that is your choice, but think carefully about who needs to have this information easy to access.

As previously described above, you can use your “Friends” lists to designate who gets to see what and/or block certain people or lists from viewing any of your contact information.

3. Search Results

Do you know how searchable you are, both within the Facebook community and on the web? The search default in Facebook is to create a public search listing so others can see a preview of your Facebook profile on search engines, such as Google. That means that when someone searches for your name, they’ll see your Facebook profile picture, as well as any other information you’ve made public, such as your networks, friends, groups, and more. This privacy setting also determines how searchable you are on Facebook.

To change this privacy setting: Go to your “Privacy Settings” page and choose “Search.” There are two privacy settings you can change: your “Facebook Search Results,” which determines who can see your search results on Facebook; and “Public Search Results,” which you can allow or disallow.  At a minimum uncheck “Public Search Results” so your profile is not being found on Google.

Whew, I know that is a lot to digest.  There are 3 more privacy settings I believe are important for you to know.  Those are discussed in Part II.