As of today, there is a new privacy setting called "Instant Personalization" that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to "Allow." Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck "Allow".
I've also stripped my profile of absolutely everything. I was unable to remove my email address and I am extremely thankfull that I used my 'on line' name. If you click on a 'like' button or a Facebook button, or I don't know what else, your Facebook info is automatically downloaded into that site.
I tried ( twice) to copy/paste a link for an article into my facebook but got a whole elaborate illustrative graphic for that link as well. I didn't want that and had no idea what was really happening so I didn't click the button to post it.
I'd really like to leave Facebook but there are so many friends there, including my granddaughters.
With FB you pay to play. You could just lurk there reading other people's stuff, but that's not really social networking, so what's the point? I love that it brings together friends from high school, college, GL, church, etc. I can keep track of everyone on one site and I really appreciate that. I keep my privacy set to as private as it will allow, but I've accepted that it will never be truly "private." It's just not designed to be that kind of forum, the whole point is social networking.
It's interesting that so many women have embraced it, but many men I know roll their eyes and say NEVER! (my husband and Joel C included in this group lol!). My sons are into it, but they're the facebook generation. I can't imagine a teen NOT using it -- it would be like not having a telephone.
-- Edited by KarenK on Friday 30th of April 2010 10:53:03 AM
It's one thing to not have privacy within Facebook itself. Originally, we had a measure of control over that by determining what our friends could see versus Facebook's general membership. It is a whole other matter with Facebook handing off information about you to other websites with or without your approval. Our list of friends is included with that. It is still not clear to me if the activity of my friends results in other sites gaining access to my information.
We have Farmville, Mafia Wars, and the like to thank for these changes, which were aimed at developers who were having to download the same person's information millions of times, because while they played those games every day, the developers could only keep their data in queue for 24 hours, costing these developers boat loads of money and man power.
My least favorite aspect of Farmville is the applications, which are the cause for this change, and more importantly, clutter up my feed faster than I can play "whack-a-mole" with the "block application" button. I truly wish those applications -- or at least the most popular ones like Farmville -- would leave Facebook and become their own website. They won't, of course, because Farmville THRIVES on Facebook and would not exist without it, and there are so many users spending their LIVES on Facebook playing the game, that FB is raking in money from advertisers to cater to this group.
Unless you take a lot of quizzes or play Facebook games, chances are you are not really sending so much of your information "out there." As far as the links go, I believe that as you're posting one, when that box pops up with the photo from the original site, etc, you can "X" off that box and post your link without creating a "pingback" -- i.e. without that site having a record of your posting the link. I could be wrong about that, but it seems to be the case.
As you may know, my Facebook profile isn't private. I have disallowed third parties from using my info and things such as that, but as far as the information that I've put on there about myself, it is there for whoever cares to view it. As KarenK said, it is a social networking site, and that is part of social networking. Granted, I am from the generation that started using the internet socially in my teens, and that is probably why I am more comfortable with it. My "internet presence," as it were, is a circle of my blog site, my Twitter, and Facebook. Facebook is actually the one I use the least of those, and it essentially exists to be a snapshot of myself, and gives me the opportunity to reconnect with people I would not otherwise keep up with. I am comfortable with it, as I would not have put the information on there in the first place if I wasn't fine with anyone seeing it.
That being said, Facebook, like everyone else in the corporate world, is out for itself. It's a business, and they are in it to make money. They make their money from the developers and advertisers that pay to be a part of the site. So, the users are on the bottom of the totem pole.
I don't mind the data mining from advertisers so much, because it means that when I go to Facebook, I see ads on the sides that are geared toward me, and while I have never clicked on a single one of them, they've often proven quite informative for me, letting me know when an album is coming out or an artist I like is playing in my area. Without them mining my profile for my likes and dislikes, I'd have to suffer through the typical internet ads about dating sites or viagra.
By the way, if when you sign up for Facebook, you check that you are under 18, ALL of your information is private whether you request it or not. So that is always an option for any newbies, or if you want to delete your current account and create a different one.
Otherwise, I recommend only putting information out there that you don't mind anyone seeing, setting your profile to as private as possible, and not using any applications.
Amanda! You certainly do have a handle on all of this. I am very impressed.
Everything makes so much sense after reading your post here. Plus, in terms of the pinging, when visiting another forum that has ads, I was begining to see ads geared specifically to my photo equipment interests. It was too consistent to be accidental. I've been investigating some camera and printer info recently. After I deleted all my cookies, it stopped.
You're right. I'm not comfortable with all the info sharing. Mercy! If I ever won the lottery, I'd have to go into the witness protection program.
