May 17, 2010

Securing your Facebook account


Thanks, Facebook.

I'm not a big fan of their new "connections" idea, which takes your previous list of interests and links them to a page.

The problem I saw was that suddenly, everyone's page information was now public knowledge. People who I knew before had completely private profiles were now disclosing their interests, likes, and tastes in music. So I refused to link my pages because I thought that they would be public to everyone. Facebook later wiped them out and changed my profile to the new profile.

Now I've figured out what just happened. In the "Friends, Tags, and Connections" part under Privacy Settings, they now have separate controls for each part of your profile. And guess what? Current City, Hometown, Education and Work, Activities, Interests, and Things I Like were turned to "Everyone" by default. Thanks, Facebook. It's high time for opt-out – set to friends by default and only opened up by others.

I encourage you to turn them to "Friends Only" and safely link your connections without fearing the loss of privacy.