Thumbnail courtesy: *RohanElf
A recent conversation with a colleague sparked new debate on the privacy of our real life information while living our virtual lives. My colleague wanted to connect with me on Facebook and I felt a wee bit apprehensive about letting my official contacts on my FB account which was more for personal use and friends. But that got me thinking how private is my information anyways, now that I have put it up on a social networking site. Is it really true that only my friends view my information? Well that got me searching and it boggled me, when hackers can break through Google servers or even important corporate information, Is a FB account any challenge. So there was my choice, I either remove all private info and lead a so called ‘not happening’ virtual life or I do something about it.
Yes settings can provide decent amount of protection lets see how! First log into your FB account, and on the top right corner you will see the tab ‘Account’, click on it, comedown to ‘Privacy Options’ and click again. Once the new page opens up, click on Personal Information and Posts. Now under this you will find many info headings such as bio etc and options of privacy, for all seven of these ‘types of information’ set privacy as ‘only friends’. Once this is done, there are a few things to ‘uncheck’! Uncheck the ‘friends can post on my wall’ option. Then under photo albums, click on edit settings and again set viewing option as ‘only friends’ for each and every album. Now click on the ‘Privacy’ button at the top left of the page, now under ‘contact information’ set all the lines to ‘only friends’ again. Click on ‘Back to Privacy’ to get to the main page again, now select the next on the list ‘Friends, Tags and Connections’, once again set everything to ‘only friends’. Tiersome right!? But definitely Worth it! Now things get repetitive, back to the privacy page and click on ‘Applications and Websites’ now you will find around 6 options, on the line ‘What you share’ click ‘Learn More’ and kindly read the info put up there! Go back to the Applications and Websites page and click on ‘Edit Settings’ now you will see something called ‘What your friends can share about you’ here uncheck all boxes and click on ‘Save Changes’. Go back to Applications and Websites, click on the drop-down menu across from ‘Activity on Applications and Games Dashboards’ Select ‘only friends’. Okay guys keep faith, there we are now almost done (on the applications and website page at least!) The last line, click ‘edit settings’ for ‘Instant Personalization Pilot Program’, here uncheck the box and click ‘confirm’. Now click on ‘Applications and Websites’ then click on ‘Back to Privacy’. On this page now click on the option line ‘Search’, in the new page select ‘only friends’ for ‘Facebook Search Results’. Next to ‘Public search results’ uncheck the option ‘allow’. Now when you are asked Are you sure!? please CONFIRM!
Now that you are done, its time for a trial check, click on ‘back to privacy’ click ‘Personal Information and Posts’ and then click on ‘Preview My Profile’. I’m sure you understood what you are about to view now! Yes you are going to type in names of friends/people and see how your FB acc looks to them. If it is exactly what you want them to see then its a job well done… indeed!
