The phenomenally popular social networking site is well known to most people, even those who have never joined Facebook. We look at the major issues and make recommendations for using Facebook safely to stay protected while you interact with your friends on the site. Theses tips will help you safeguard your personal information, and protect your private information from malicious attacks, the worst case scenario of which could involve you or unintentionally giving personal information to many third parties or even having to send off your computer for computer repairs.


1. General Privacy Settings
Privacy settings on Facebook change from time to time, but the key options stay generally the same.

• Who can find you
• Who can add you
• Who can see your wall posts, status updates, photos, and personal information
• Who can comment on your posts
• Who can see the places you check into

You can limit to the people who can find you in the Facebook database to your friends’ friends, and even just to yourself. “Places you check in” allows you to share your geographical location with your friends when you access Facebook by mobile phone. You can limit this option, along with the others, such as who can add you, or see your wall, in the same way, keeping in mind that the Facebook database is accessible to anyone with an account.
Friends Lists
If you have a large number of friends and want to share information selectively, you can create detailed friends lists specifying that certain information, status updates, or wall posts be restricted to those on certain lists. If you have an open profile, use good judgment in posting information and consider restricting the amount of personal information you make available.
2. Other Settings
Public Search
This option (Privacy Settings>Public Search) allows you to restrict search engine access to your basic profile – the same profile that comes up when someone (who isn’t your friend) searches by full name or email address, or clicks on your name in someone’s friend’s list. If this option is switched off, your basic profile will not come up when someone types your name into a search engine.
Photo Privacy
Facebook privacy settings for photo privacy have improved while, at the same time, necessarily becoming more complicated. For photos you upload on to your profile, you can specify degrees of privacy, such as restricting it to friends only, or a particular friends list, or even keeping it open.
The other option relating to photo privacy allows you to restrict the people who can view photos and videos in which you have been tagged, for example, uploaded and tagged by a friend. This means you can stop certain people on your friends’ list from seeing the photo when the “tagged” news story comes up in your newsfeed. However, friends of the friend who tagged you can still see the photo or video through your mutual friend’s profile.
Applications
Some of the more difficult issues concern third party applications that can be accessed through Facebook. The endless quizzes, games, and surveys that you click on and play with your friends may be sending you and your friends’ private data to the company that developed the application. And depending on that company’s policies, the fine print – which you approve when you allow applications access on Facebook – may read that they can share this information with further third parties.
If you like to use these applications, you should only use those from sources that you trust. Check the company name on the internet before you give them permission to access your private data. You can find a list of applications you have approved in under Account>Privacy Settings. Where these applications prompt you to download and install a file, never do so, as these could be malware designed to attack your computer, resulting in you having to obtain professional IT services to fix your computer. This has previously occurred in incidents concerning some rogue Facebook applications.
If you don’t use these applications at all, it’s advisable to completely turn off access to your profile by all applications and websites under Privacy Settings>Apps and Websites. These settings also allow you to turn off access to your information by these applications through your friends.