A new version of the Facebook Privacy Policy emerged about a month ago. The changes and the policy in general have outraged many people and groups. (What’s new?) As a matter of fact, as of May 7th, fifteen groups have filed reports against Facebook with the FTC.
My reaction to Facebook privacy and social media privacy in general is to “be proactive”. I believe that one should change the things they can, accept the things they cannot change and be wise enough to know the difference. While easier said than done at times, this is a good rule of thumb to live by. With that in mind, I know I cannot change Facebook’s privacy policy or the fact that they make constant changes to it and seem to make things less private with each policy revision. I accept that! And I take specific actions to protect my privacy and/or my reputation on Facebook (and other social media sites). These actions are:
- Don’t provide your actual birth date (at least change the year) when signing up on internet sites
- Definitely don’t make your birth year visible on your profile and perhaps hide your birth date as well
- Don’t fill in every field you see during profile set up just because it’s there. First think about whether or not the info is actually necessary to help you reach your goal on that particular site. Do you really need to tell people what town you live in? Do they need to know your address? Do they really need to know your political affiliations or your religious beliefs? Or, would making this info public possibly offend a portion of your target market?
- Don’t display a home address on your profile
- Be sure to adjust your account & privacy settings to limit the info you share and whom you share it with
In summary, my recommendation is to be mindful of what you include in your social media profiles and what you post on your personal pages as well as business pages. Don’t rely on a huge company like Facebook to protect your privacy for you. Be proactive and protect your privacy by only posting things on the internet that you don’t mind others seeing! This way, even if there is a privacy or software glitch, you still haven’t overexposed yourself on the internet.
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{ 9 comments }
This is a good reminder to be careful of what goes public online. Although we do want to get to know people you meet online, there definitely are pros and cons as to what personal data is released.
Thanks for commenting Nelly. The bottom-line is if people are mindful of what they post in their profiles and status updates, they can enjoy the benefits of social networking without baring all. – Kimberly
I liked your post it is informative, however as for the birth date well, understand that what you don’t share is sometimes as important as what you do share. A very simple reverse check of your phone number can many times reveal all of that information. A simple search with $10.00 will reveal everyone with your name in the US and so forth. At times it is sad to actually understand what all is available on the internet whether we put it there or not. Just my two cents
Great point Ross! Many people also don’t realize that the address you use when purchasing a domain name is publicly available on the internet unless you pay extra for a private domain registration. I use a P O Box address as my primary business address and also when registering domains to “help’ protect my privacy. Thanks for commenting, Kimberly
I agree that many of these sites ask for too much information. I think we all should be careful about the stuff we have for the public to see. I have seen where some people post their life history and later it came back to haunt them. This is a very useful post. Thanks for sharing.
Karen
Thanks for stopping by Karen. Have a great day! – Kimberly
Hi Kimberly! Your post is very informative and it needs to be read by Facebook members. While Facebook may be ok stewards of our personal details, we may not want to trust third parties, and we should always have the option to say no.
Thanks you for sharing this content!
James
Hi James – Thanks for your comment. Did you see the news yesterday? Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is promising improvements to the Facebook privacy settings because of all the heat he/his company has gotten about the changes they made it April. Should be interesting to see what comes next! – Kimberly
I will say that I feel no threat to my privacy on Facebook because I limit my interactions to people who are my family, known friends and colleagues. All the business networking that I do there I restrict to the new FAN PAGE.
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