By Doctor Security
A few weeks back, Facebook announced that they have updated and improved their Privacy Settings. If you are like most people that have a Facebook account, you probably didn’t even bother to check them out. I confess neither did I…until today. What I discovered startled me a bit: I’m revealing more than I want to “Everyone.” Facebook defines “everyone” as anybody who accesses the Internet.
Facebook has recommended default settings for certain categories of information. Call me old fashion, but I don’t want anybody with access to Google to be able to learn all about my family and personal relationships, work, my education info or personal postings. This makes identity theft, cyber stalking, and offline harassment way too easy. I don’t think I have enemies but you just can’t be too trusting online.
One thing you can do to really protect your privacy is to limit the number of friends you accept into your Facebook network. Unless you’re a rock star or a politician, there’s no need for having 500, 600, 700 friends linked to you on Facebook. It’s not a popularity contest!
LinkedIn is fine for hundreds and thousands of contacts in your network because that’s all about your professional life, but Facebook was designed to keep in-touch with your personal network (family and close friends). Don’t expose your Facebook activities to colleagues, acquaintances and strangers. There are ample stories based on the negative ramifications from “wrong” people having access to someone’s personal life.
Please check out this video about Facebook privacy, if you want to learn more:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=366944610483
See my Facebook settings below, if you want an example of how restrictive you should be of your personal information. It’s a good deal more restrictive than what Facebook is advocating. Over time, I will venture back to these settings to fine tune them but for now, here it is: