Adjusting Your Facebook New Privacy Settings

Facebook's New Privacy Settings Page

In June 2010, Facebook streamlined its privacy settings to a single page in an effort to simplify its privacy controls. The following interactive provides an overview of the types of controls you can edit or customize in Facebook. As you continue through this lesson, we will explain each section in detail and recommend the best choices you can make to optimize your privacy.

Keep in mind that the recommendations we make throughout this lesson are geared toward a high level of privacy. If you are less concerned about privacy and prefer to be more open and social, then you can choose the various options that set your sharing to be more visible. 

Set Privacy for Connecting on Facebook

Review the interactive for recommendations on how to control privacy for information that is included in your Facebook profile. This section also includes controls for who can search for you and contact you on Facebook.

Customize Settings for How You Share on Facebook

It is highly recommended that you customize settings for how you share on Facebook. If you choose one of the standard settings of Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends Only and Recommended you may still be risking your privacy. Review the interactive for recommendations on how to control privacy for Things I Share, Things Others Share and followed by Contact Information.
Customize Settings for How You Share on Facebook

It is highly recommended that you customize settings for how you share on Facebook. If you choose one of the standard settings of Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends Only and Recommended you may still be risking your privacy. Review the interactive for recommendations on how to control privacy for Things I Share, Things Others Share and followed by Contact Information.

Facebook Privacy Settings - Contact Information

The only contact information you are required to submit to Facebook is a legitimate email account. All other contact information is optional and we recommend that you do not add this sensitive information to your Facebook profile. Keep in mind that your can always use the "Send a Message" feature to contact Friends privately via Facebook, therefore you do not even need to make your email visible.
However, if you're marketing a business or networking socially then your goal may be to get people to contact you. In those circumstances, you may want to add additional contact information and make it more visible.

Customize settings for Contact information

Apps, Games and Websites

This section controls the information and activity that can be accessed by Applications, Games and Websites that you connect with via Facebook. This section is tricky because it allows you to edit settings for individual applications, but you are limited in what you can block. Most applications will require you to provide your personal information and activity in order to use them. You need to decide if your privacy is worth what an application has to offer.

Other important controls in this section include:

• How to block your Friends from sharing information about you when they connect with an application
• How to disable Facebook's Instant Personalization feature that shares your information with partner websites
• How to disable your profile from showing up in a public search engine

For the best privacy, we recommend disabling and turning off these features. However, since applications are very social features, you should review the interactive to learn more and decide for yourself.