How to Address Your Facebook Privacy Concerns   by Yodle

in Marketing    (submitted 2010-11-30)

As we know, Facebook is an environment rich with detailed personal information that potential customers have chosen to share. Maybe you have a Facebook account for your business. Maybe you’ve created a fan page. Or maybe you’ve just decided that social networking can’t really help you grow your business. Either way, you’ve probably been hearing a lot on the news about Facebook privacy issues.

Privacy Concerns
These days, the internet has made a lot of information available to a lot of people. Facebook in particular has prompted a firestorm of criticism in the last several weeks by making changes to privacy settings without users’ knowledge. Even though Facebook recently launched a Facebook privacy page to address these concerns and update users, default settings tend to favor a more “open” social networking experience. That means you’re sharing information beyond your circle of friends.

Privacy Settings
By changing your privacy settings, fortunately, you can control much of how you share information on Facebook. In order to access your privacy settings, simply click the Account drop down menu on the upper right hand side of your main Facebook page. From the drop down menu, select Privacy Settings. There are four main categories pertaining to privacy settings: Sharing on Facebook, Basic Directory Information, Applications and Websites, and Block Lists.

1) Sharing on Facebook: This option simply refers to your daily activity, such as status updates, photos and videos. This also includes information you share about yourself, like where you live and your birthday. You can choose whether or not you want everyone, friends of friends, or just friends to see your information. Or you can customize to indicate the level of sharing you want.

2) Basic Directory Information: By choosing this category, you can control how non-friends on Facebook search for you and what information they can see. This applies to big corporate advertisers. You can determine not only who sees your information but also who can send you messages or different kinds of requests.

3) Applications, Games and Websites: It is a category to pay special attention to, because it affects how the outside world can interact with your profile. This has to do with third-party applications that can share your information with other websites (a feature that can be easily disabled by clicking a tick box) or whether or not your Facebook profile is searchable through search engines like Google (again disabled by clicking a tick box).

4) Creating Block Lists: It is as self-explanatory as it sounds: it refers to people or application invites (think Farmville) that you would like to block. Once blocked, they cannot interact with you in any way or vice versa.

Useful Resources
In addition to the above simple overview of how to control your privacy settings on Facebook, there is still much more information to wade through to get even more answers. Here are some useful resources to help you:

1) ConnectSafely.org: This is a website dedicated to offering tutorials and practical advice in order to help you socialize prudently online.
2) Privacydefender.com: Due to Facebook issues and other concerns related to social networking, there have been a few online services that have sprouted to help businesses and people manage their online reputations. Privacydefender is designed to help you to take full control over your Facebook privacy settings quickly and easily.

About the Author

Yodle is a leading provider of local online advertising that provides businesses with a simple and affordable way to get more phone calls - and new customers. Follow http://twitter.com/yodle”">Yodle on Twitter today! Check out Yodle Blog and you will read more about online advertising and social media advertising.