New Facebook Privacy Information

When logging into Facebook you may have recently seen (or will soon see... the roll-out will take a little while to get to all users) a message titled "Improved Privacy Controls" at the top of your News Feed... It should look something like this:

As has been well-documented, Facebook has faced a great deal of criticism for their privacy and programming changes as well as how they initially failed to respond to users' concerns. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has finally responded to criticism and is hoping the changes highlighted below will gain some of the lost trust of users back for FB. You can click on the image for a more detailed view.

This image highlights the core privacy controls:

Sharing on Facebook - Suggestion: "Friends Only" across the board. The only thing I have different is that some of my email addresses are only visible to me on the page (which begs the question - why is it still on the account? ...the answer: because it is what I use to log in)

Basic Directory Information - Suggestion: This one is actually more based on your personal preferences. I would suggest that everyone be able to send you messages, in case there is a potential connection you do not realize. I would also advise you to make your friend list private - people (the not-nice-variety) use these to mine for information and deceive users.

Applications and Websites - Suggestion: IMPORTANT - the "Information accessible through your friends" and "Instant personalization" categories are what make many users sketchy about recent FB changes. I would strongly urge you not to share anything with your friends' applications. If one of your friends makes the mistake of adding a bad/malicious application, you will likely avoid being victimized. As mentioned previously, you can/should also disable the instant personalization, as it provides your information to third parties. This privacy setting page (Apps & Sites) also provides a list of all applications you have given permissions to... I found it as a useful way to cleanup and remove those that I no longer need.

Block Lists - Suggestion: Block those people and applications you do not want to hear from... that simple.
"Additional controls" and privacy comments. These sections are worth reading if you have any concerns or lack of understanding on the current FB policies and settings.

If you still have questions after reading these - let me know and I'll do my best to answer your questions.

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