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Ahhh! Facebook Alert! Just Take a Breath
Posted by Jeff on December 15, 2009 1 views Comments (View Comments)Ok folks, so how many of you have posted the “Facebook Alert!!” that Facebook is going to allow Google to index your profile?? I know about 38 people that posted it which is all fine and dandy, but it does cause a viral panic that isn’t 100% accurate. Facebook posted this on the top of my Security Page when I went to review my already “locked down” profile:
“There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile.”
and yes…this indexing of your profile has dated back to September 2007. Here’s an article from Mashable.com titled, “Facebook Profiles Will Appear in Google Results Next Month” WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
Verify your profile indexing settings by clicking on Settings (at the top of the page) –> Privacy Settings –> Search –> then UN-CHECK the box that says ‘Allow indexing’.
The Allow Indexing button reads:
Allow search engines to access your publicly available info and any information visible to Everyone
So in other words, Facebook is going to allow search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, whatever) to search PUBLIC INFO (i.e., your name, profile pic and anything else you’ve left unprotected). Facebook released an announcement a week ago about changes being made to your Privacy Settings, so this isn’t something they tried to “hide”.
Ok, so back to the point…hopefully you’ve already “locked down” your facebook profile so that only the PEOPLE you WANT to be able to view “that you don’t like when it rains because it makes your hair look bad” can see that and no one else.
Now…there are steps you MUST take to secure your profile. It seems that most profiles are already pretty secure, but when the latest Facebook New Privacy push came out a few days ago it did raise a few eyebrows of Security Experts.
a snippet and quote from the article: A spokesperson from security firm Sophos says in a statement to Mashable:
“These could be the most important clicks you ever make on Facebook. If you don’t read carefully you could find that every post you make on Facebook, and your personal information, is visible to everyone in the world who has a computer rather than just your Facebook friends.
Let’s make this clear. If you make your information available to ‘everyone,’ it actually means ‘everyone, forever.’ Because even if you change your mind, it’s too late — and although Facebook say they will remove it from your profile they will have no control about how it is used outside of Facebook.”
SO ACT NOW!
I’m not going to scare you by posting that Google is going to index your Facebook profile (enough of your friends have done that already).
But I will say, “Make sure you review your Facebook Privacy and Security Settings and adjust them to suit your personal level of privacy.” I can’t stress enough that YOU have to ensure your privacy settings are how you WANT them to be set. It takes just a few minutes to get in there and review your security/permissions and figure it out. Start small…start with photo albums of your kids. Only let those people that you really know see your kid’s pics. That’s how I’ve set things up.
Now, I’m a rather OPEN person and social media junkie and I’ve pretty much locked down my Facebook Profile to allow only certain Lists (groups) to see different parts of my profile, photo albums, status updates etc.
HELP!! HOW DO I SET MY PRIVACY AND SECURITY???
Well there are a few ways to do this. First I would start off by creating a few Lists/Groups of friends. Take my example, I have lists named:
- Business
- College
- High School
- Kids (all my friends that have kids that we know)
- Limited Profile (restricted profile settings)
- No Status Updates (DON’T GET ON THIS LIST! HAHA!)
- Friends (a growing list of close friends)
- and more…
If you add a user to more than one Friend List, and those Friend Lists have conflicting privacy settings, the more restrictive of the privacy settings will always be respected.
So for example, you don’t want people to see your college photos except a select few college friends, you could customize the permissions for a specific photo album to only allow the select college friends to view. Or maybe you don’t want your business contacts to see your status updates, pics, etc. Just set up a Friend List for Business and set all the Privacy settings to not show to Business. It’s actually VERY SIMPLE once you get started.
CONTACT ME FOR HELP
FEEL FREE TO ASK ME QUESTIONS ON SECURING YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE. You can post to my wall, or message me on FB or get me on Twitter @DaddysToolbox
OTHER LINKS TO READ
Facebook Friend Lists: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=768
Posted via web from Tinch72 // Daddy’s Toolbox
