Dec. 28, 2009

Posted by in Facebook | 2 comments

10 Basic Concepts of Facebook Privacy

  1. Your name, your profile picture, your gender, your current city, the networks you’re in, who you’re friends with, and the pages you’re a fan of are available to anyone. These are known as publicly accessible information (PAI). You have no control over this.
  2. Any other piece of content marked visible to “Everyone” in your privacy settings is available to anyone. You have control over this.
  3. Any Facebook application or web site using Facebook Connect that you visit can access your PAI and content marked visible to “Everyone” in your privacy settings. You have no control over this.
  4. Any Facebook application you log in to or web site that you connect with your Facebook account can access all of your profile information (except for contact information), photos, videos, notes, events, groups, links, and notifications, regardless of your privacy settings. You have no control over this.
  5. Any Facebook application your friends log in to or web site your friends connect with their Facebook account that you have not also logged in to or connected with can access your information and content based on your application, profile, and content privacy settings. You have control over this.
  6. Any wall post a Facebook application or web site using Facebook Connect makes on your profile is visible to anyone who can view your wall. You have no control over this.
  7. Any change to profile information or feedback on content will generate a story on your wall visible to anyone who can also access the information or content. You have no control over this.
  8. Profile information, photos, videos, and notes are visible to other users based on your profile and content privacy settings. You have control over this.
  9. Events you’re invited to are visible to other users who can also view the event. You have no control over this.
  10. Past status updates and links are visible to other users based on the privacy setting used when posted. You have no control over this.
  1. keep in mind that after you make a change to your profile you can also delete the change note, but it is still visible for a short time. Was the first item changed when they did all the other security “upgrades”?

  2. @Paul: Yes, you can always manually delete items on your wall, but you have no control over the items being generated in the first place. Previously, you could prevent certain stories from appearing automatically.

    And yes, the first item did change with all the recent modifications to privacy controls. Prior to the updates, users had more control over whether this information was publicly available.

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