Controlling your Privacy in Facebook ~ THEGAMETECH

Please everyone: More Privacy issues... did you know your information has been shared with several websites without your knowledge?? Facebook has 'partnered' with these websites 'to make these sites more fun and useful the moment you arrive.'

Facebook states:
"Just as your News Feed on Facebook is built uniquely for you, instant personalization sites let you easily bring your friends and interests with you.
Partners adhere to Facebook's guidelines and may only use your public information to serve you a personalized experience. Public information includes your name, profile picture, gender, networks, and other information you've made public.
When you first arrive on a participating site, you will see a notification and a way to turn off the customized experience in one click. Your information can only be used to present you with a more personalized experience and cannot be transferred to advertisers or used for any other purposes."

But they have already shared this information without our consent, what's to stop them from it going everywhere else?? And their only suggestion is to go to each site to be able to turn it off instead of asking us in the first place if we want our information shared...

What's more disturbing is they have heard people don't like this and have done nothing: "Recently people have been spreading false rumors about instant personalization. This program was introduced in April 2010" So it's been on for this long... and we are just getting the full ability to see what it does and have the choice to disable it.

To fix this:

1) Click the arrow in the top right of your screen to drop down the setting/log out box
2) Click Privacy Settings
3) Click Apps and Websites, edit settings
4) Click Instant Personalization Edit Settings
5) Close the box that pops up
6) Uncheck the "enable instant personalization..." box
7) Click Confirm

How people bring your info to apps they use

"People who can see your info can bring it with them when they use apps. "So our information is being shared not only through our activity but through our friend's app activity too...To adjust what they can use:1) Click the arrow in the top right to drop the settings/ log out box
2) Click Privacy Settings
3) Clicks Apps and Websites Edit Settings
4) Click How People bring your info to apps they use edit settings
5) Uncheck any information you do not wish shared through your friend's apps
6) Click Save Changes

Public search

So FB is truly sharing things with the world. When someone types your name in to a search engine, they can actually find your FB profile and view it without you knowing. Granted anything you have have made private to your friends only will not be seen, but anything you have not changed the settings to can be seen by anyone, like who's on your friend's list, and who are your family members...

See for yourself how much is shown when you are searched through an engine, Google your name and see if you can find your profile... I tried it, it's scary...

To change this:

1) Click the arrow in the top right to drop down the setting/log out box
2) Click Privacy Settings
3) Click apps and websites edit settings
4) Click Public search edit settings
5) Uncheck Enable public search
6) Click confirm

To See what your profile looks like to non-friends

To find out, use this link, scroll down next to the video to the small blue shaded box and click the

"View As..." link

http://www.facebook.com/about/control

Here you can puruse your profile and see what it looks like to someone you have not friended, now you know the areas where you need to adjust your privacy settings.

Adjusting what is visible to whom on your profile
1) Go to your profile
2) At the top where your information is listed under your name, click Edit Profile
3) Spend your time choosing the visibility settings for each piece of information. I suggest especially looking at your contact information and locking that down to just the people you trust

Thwarting the ticker
In order to thwart the damn ticker that shows off your every move, we must all lock down our wall, our posts to just our friends. To do this, when you next post something, click the posts visibility box and select 'Friends', not even friends of friends. If we all do this, then our every move will eventually be private again. As of right now, even if you have your posts only visible to friends, if you comment on another persons post, and they have their setting at 'Friends of Friends' or 'Public' then others can see that you have posted on there and can have it come up on their feed and in their ticker too. So we need to all change the visibility to "Friends" to make it work fully.

Locking game posts to be visible/hidden specific people
1) Click the settings/log out drop down box and click Privacy Settings
2) Click Apps and Website Edit Settings
3) Under Apps You Use click Edit Settings
4) Find desired app, click Edit
5) Under App Activity Privacy, set desired visibility settings

You can make them visible to only certain people, or if you have lists made, you can use those too. Or you can take the other route and simply hide said game posts from specific individuals by clicking Customize :)

Photos
If you are like me and do not wish to have your every photo shared to the world, there are a few steps to adjust the settings the way you may desire.

Tagged Photos

Personally I don't like having photos Ive been tagged in visible to people from my profile. To change this visibility: Go to where you would edit you profile picture, and below it, click the link that says Hide All for the photos at the top of your page.

To limit how people tag you: Head to your privacy settings, and adjust the settings under 'How tags work' to make them ask your confirmation for you to be tagged in photos.

Photos on your profile

To lock these, head to your profile. Click photos, and in the top right click See All Photos. This will show your albums, and you can adjust the visibility settings to each photo album as you desire.

Payment Information
I suggest everyone do this, just for the simple fact that FB is saving your parment information... Something you surely don't want out, and regardless of their assurance of 'security' how much do we really trust them? To remove your payment information:
1) Go to your account settings via the settings/log out box
2) Click Payments
3) Click manage on payment methods
4) Remove any and all payment methods from this list (You WILL be asked to reenter your password, and yes that is secure, it is required for it)

This will also help you keep from spending unwanted money. If you accidentally click something to purchase with real money, alot of times there is not a confirmation on whether or not you wish to make the purchase. Saving your payment information is FBs idea of being 'helpful' so you will not have to input your information every time you wish to purchase something. I, however, have no problems with entering the information over and over when the alternative is having it saved on a social site with questionable privacy.

Note: If you EVER make a purchase, regarless of how obscurely connected to FB, you must return and delete this information again. It will get saved again.

Original note here.