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Friday, November 13, 2009

Facebook Privacy Concerns - Ignorance Is A Bliss

There has been a lot of talk about the Facebook Privacy concerns. Most of it is ignorance on part of the users. You can't blame Facebook for that.

Two issues which I came across on the net amongst my peers and otherwise while browsing were:

(a) Photos of the user are visible to non-mutual friends of user's friends.

(b) Third Party applications extracting data of users when a friend was allowing access to a third party.

(c) Use of your Profile and photo in Social ads by Faceboo as well as third party applications.

Here is the fact. Facebook has got measures in place to avoid both scenarios. However people are just not aware of them or are too lazy to do anything about protecting their own privacy. If you are really concerned here is what you need to do

Issue 1: Photos of the user are visible to non-mutual friends of user's friends Go to the settings menu and select Privacy settings. In the basic settings select Friends only in all the options. This flaw existed because there is an option of selecting friends of friends in the drop down box.

Issue 2: Third Party applications extracting data of users when a friend was allowing access to a third party Under the privacy tab select Applications and then settings on the Application pages. This is the place where you can select what information should be visible to third party applications when one of your friends allows the application to extract his information. Make your selections and save the settings. Your Privacy is now as good as any thing else. There is also a choice, "Do not share any information about me through the Facebook API" but you can select it only when you remove all applications which are built on the platform. Rest assured you can't do that unless you want to give up the entire meaning of the Facebook experience.

Issue 3: Use of your Profile and photo in Social ads by Faceboo as well as third party applications In the Privacy settings select News Feed and Wall. On the new page select "Facebook Ads". You will see that it is mentioned on the page that Facebook does not give third party applications or ad networks the right to use your name or picture in ads. If this is allowed in the future, this setting will govern the usage of your information. However to be sure that you are not caught unawares select No one against the setting "Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to" and save your settings. The next setting on the same page is the "Ads shown by Facebook" This is generally harmless because the Social Action Ads are just used for promoting some content like Pages etc for intimating your friends about your actions like becaoming a fan, joining a group etc.

The question that arises now is that why is Facebook not clarifying this option openly. The reason is simple. If all users hid their information from third party applications, the third party application developers and promoters/advertisers will have no reason to continue to offer the free applications on Facebook. After all it is all about money, honey.

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