Understanding Facebook Privacy

For your own safety and protection you should always review the privacy settings of any application or website you join on the web. Facebook privacy is rather complex and its policies have often been controversial in regards to how much user information is being shared. That is why it is important to have a good understanding of how your information is shared and what policies and controls Facebook has in place for privacy.
Reviewi this lesson carefully in order to get a better idea of how to set your privacy controls to a level you are comfortable with.

You've heard the stories surrounding Facebook privacy issues. They range from someone being slightly humiliated by a photo that was shared to an employee being fired for making negative comments about their boss. Facebook has several levels of privacy that could prevent such situations, but unfortunately many users do not pay attention to their privacy settings and that can lead to trouble.
Below are five essentials that everyone should understand about Facebook privacy:

Facebook automatically defaults privacy settings to Everyone. In other words, if you do not set your privacy settings, then your information will be available to anyone and everyone both within Facebook and outside on the web for anyone to search, access and use.

Some public information from your profile is always considered publicly available and is excluded from privacy settings. This information includes your name, profile picture, gender and networks you belong to. You do however have the option of not including photos, gender and networks in your Profile.

When you connect with third-party websites and applications they can access and use information on Facebook related to you and your Friends. In other words. when you respond to a survey or join a game, you are giving these sites access to your account and all the personal information about you and your Friends. You should pay special attention to the privacy settings for Applications and Websites if you plan on connecting with third-party sites.

Facebook allows advertisers to serve advertising to you based on characteristics obtained from your personal information. Facebook does not share your information or who you specifically are without your consent. However, if you click on an advertisement, that advertiser may put a cookie in your browser for tracking purposes.

Privacy settings for minors are not allowed to be set to Everyone or Public Search. Profiles for those under the age of 18 are limited to Friends of Friends and Networks and are not listed in the public search option. However, their public profile information including name, profile picture, gender and networks are still available.

When you sign up with Facebook, your privacy settings are defaulted to Everyone. Everyone includes everyone on Facebook and anyone on the Internet that conducts a search for your name. If you want to protect your personal information and your activity on Facebook then it is a good idea to customize your privacy settings.

Watch the video to see an example of how you might want to set your privacy, then review the interactive below for specific definitions of the privacy settings offered by Facebook.