I have stolen a blog post from 0ddness as I thought it worth sharing to a few more people!! It is about the privacy settings on Facebook and how to alter them... well worth the read people.
Privacy Woes
It's not been much of a secret that Facebook has been in the press a lot lately. And the more worrying thing about it is, it's been in the press a lot for the same reasons.
Privacy, Lack Thereof, and Your Information.
Now, if you've not seen any of it, it's probably a good idea to pay attention here, because your personal info could well be smeared across any number of websites you've visited, your data could be being used to target you with spam, and you could be getting signed up for random shit.
Right now.
A while back, Facebook changed it's privacy settings. You may have seen the big box that read something like "We've made it easier to adjust your privacy!" which was very nice. I bet most of you went "Ooooh *yawn* *close box*" Fact is, that those settings were changed to various default states that lets facebook do what it likes with your info. Even slightly more worrying was the fact that your FRIENDS could also use your data too.
Not good.
The geeks of the world pointed this out to the non-geeks of the world, and suddenly there was a rather large hoo-har over it all.
What people don't realise is that the guy that runs it has a pretty shady past according to the media. Even the idea and internal gubbins of Facebook were written by a friend. A former friend of his. After he nicked it. Hence him having to make a multi-million dollar out of court settlement...
Advertising is king on the Internet - it's how Google make their money and can afford to give all their stuff away for free. Microsoft is realising this, and that's why they've teamed up with Google to try get a slice of that rather nice advertising pie. So Facebook - who also makes it's money through adverts - has decided that YOUR personal info is now THEIR personal info. And when you're not on Facebook, you actually are, and the sites you visit that happen to have signed an agreement with them are quite happy to see who you are, where you're from, what you do, what other sites you visit...
The worst part - much like Yahoo doing something similar 8-10 years ago - is that you have to opt OUT. That's right, the default setting is "Why yes of course you can look at my personal info!" which means you have to go in an change it. The worst thing, is it's buried. If you're not sure of your way around settings and options, you've got a mission on your hands. Especially when you consider that the "new easy use" privacy settings have 170 options.
170.
So, what do you do? Well, you could go in, and fiddle with all the settings and piss around with what-not and hope for the best. You could get your Not-Dan-Computer-Geek to help sort it out for you. Or, you could try this tool over at ReclaimedPrivacy.org
THANKFULLY it's as easy as clicking, dragging, pressing some buttons, and job done. The instructions are all very clear and easy to use, and bare in mind that I thought I'd managed to set my Facebook page to nice and private. Turns out, I'd missed a couple of settings. Oops.
Honestly, follow the instructions, get yourself secured. It'll only be a matter of time before someone manages to get your info and do something with it... Except, me not being a nefarious hacker, I'm not sure what they would do, but I'm betting something. People are quitting Facebook in droves (I'm not saying it's dying mind you, but they ARE leaving) for various alternatives that are cropping up, and even various media outlets are suggesting "Maybe it's time to try something else"
Good luck out there ;)
Sources:
Facebooks new privacy changes:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly
Facebook reduces control over personal information:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information
Things to stop doing on Facebook:
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109538/7-things-to-stop-doing-now-on-facebook
Facebook's gone rouge:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/
Essential privacy tips:
http://mashable.com/2010/05/18/facebook-privacy-tips/
What happens in Facebook stays in Facebook:
http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/
So hello.... :o) Haven't blogged in just over a week, and feel I have to before I lose some of the ideas I wanted to blog about lol...
Firstly the geek stuff....
The new tablet PCs/macs OK, so we have ipad from apple... looks good :-) Although if I hear, theres an app for that I think I would throw it across the room... and the courier from Microsoft... to be fair I haven't been hands on with either of them, and I am not overly sure of the release dates either, except they will be some time this year... in fact I haven't even done my normal geek research into the specs... in fact I just looked at the pictures, read through a few articles and then looked at them again... The design on the apple is almost futuristic and it is amazingly light and thin... it reminded me of a film I had seen recently, think it was 2012 where the crew members are walking around with these tablets reading instructions off of them... Nice touch... However the iPad is terrible. No multitasking, no camera, no expandable memory, no USB port, no Flash, no stylus. If I wanted an iPod Touch, I would have bought one by now. Apple had the opportunity to really corner a market in its infancy but they failed.
