Have you thought about becoming a ‘friend’ on FaceBook, but you are concerned about protecting your privacy? With over 250 million users worldwide, it is no wonder that people are concerned about their privacy being invaded when using FaceBook.
It can be a lot of fun socializing on FaceBook. You can keep in touch with family and friends all at the same time; and you can share photos and experiences almost as soon as it happens. You need not worry about your privacy being intruded upon, if you take steps to make sure your privacy is protected. These tips can help.
FaceBook Privacy Tip #1 – Be Informed
First thing to do is, go online to www.facebook.com/help.php?page=419. There are many things to read on protecting your privacy; and you can also select the level of privacy you think you will need. It will also guide you through editing your chosen privacy level should you decide you need more, or less.
FaceBook Privacy Tip #2 – Control Your Privacy
By using the drop-down menus when doing your profile, you can control the privacy level of the things listed in your profile.
Ask yourself, “Who do I want viewing this information? Or do I want anybody to view it?”
FaceBook Privacy Tip #3 – Restrict Visibility of E-mail Information
Though you can limit who sees your e-mail address on your profile, you cannot prevent people from finding your e-mail address that is attached to your account. You can though, change your e-mail address preference from the account setting page. Consider using a separate e-mail address that you will use specifically for FaceBook.
FaceBook Privacy Tip #4 – Protect Your Self
If a person is able to find you in ‘search,’ they will be able to click on your ‘search listing’ in order to see your name and networks. You can control the information that these users see by changing the options underneath the title ‘search result content.’ There are five listed options, and by un-checking any of these boxes will prevent the person from being able to perform the action.
FaceBook Privacy Tip #5 – Don’t Fall Prey to Phishing
Phishing is an online way to trick users by pretending to be a legitimate log-in page from an official webpage, or a legitimate e-mail from an organization that you would have an account with. Though this is rather simplified, here is a good example of phishing:
- www.facebook.com/example – is legitimate
- www.facebook.example.com – is not
as you can see it is important to know your domains.
In addition, there will be stores that will send you some links in exchange for your personal information for their marketing activities. However, you should not give your personal information to websites or stores that are not reputable and reliable. It is advisable to only trust websites that are popularly known and trusted such as https://takethecoupon.com/.
FaceBook Privacy Tip #6 – Protect yourself from advertisers
Have you heard of Beacon? Well, I haven’t until recently. Beacon is a sneaky advertising policy that informs ‘friends’ when you make purchases from external websites, and tracks your shopping habits. Basically, it uses you as an unwilling, and unpaid advertising recruit.
In order to avoid this, click on privacy ling in the top right corner. Scroll down to external websites link. This will bring up the page with one box to check. By checking this box, you can stop external websites registered with FaceBook from informing your friends of your purchases without your permission.
You can stop FaceBook from tracking your shopping habits. Thanks to Beacon, FaceBook can track your shopping habits, even after you have logged off FaceBook itself, as long as you are buying from a company on the advertising list. You can stop this by un-checking the ‘remember me.’ Also, make a point of regularly clearing cookies from your computer by going into the help section of your software’s internet browser.
Though these privacy tips are in no way a complete list, they will help to keep your privacy; your business.
