Facebook launched new privacy settings this week. Cosmetically, this means that the settings are explained more clearly and are marginally easier to manage. Unfortunately, some of the most significant changes actually make preserving privacy harder for its users: profile elements that could previously be restricted to 'Only Friends' are now designated as irrevocably publicly available: 'Publicly available information includes your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, and Pages.' Where you could previously preserve the privacy of this information and remain publicly searchable only by name, Facebook now forces you to either give up this information (including your current city!) to anyone with a Facebook account, or to restrict your search visibility — which of course limits the usefulness of the site far beyond how not publicly sharing your profile picture would. That Facebook made this change while simultaneously rolling out major changes to the privacy settings interface seems disingenuous."
by natehoy (1608657) on Thursday December 10, @01:20PM (#30391564) Journal
Correct.
Now the decision you need to make is based on the following information:
1. What are they asking me to give them, and
2. What are they offering me in return.
Facebook gathers the information you enter and sells it to advertisers for fun and profit. In return, they give you a virtual meetingplace chock full of tools for finding old friends and acquaintances, keeping in touch with same, organizing events, etc etc. What you are giving them in return for this service is:
- Your name and any other information you actually enter into Facebook. That includes interests, hobbies, etc for matching "the right ad" to you (enter "kayaking" as an interest and those "good luck charms for kayakers!" ads will appear almost instantly). This is "level one" of the data, and allows them to target ads to you.
- Your habits while on Facebook. Do you spend most of your time on your home page, your news feed, or an app? What kinds of things do you click the "like" button on a lot? What kinds of things do you reply to a lot?
- Things you and your friends do as a group, and what activities and discussions you have with various friends.
- They also allow third parties certain levels of access to your data based on applications your friends run.
Is it worth the price? For me, yes. I understand what I'm selling them, and I feel the service is worth the price. The same is not true of everyone.
Of course, one fallacy is that you always have to enter all of your real information into the site. It's not your Father Confessor. Enter the city closest to your town, not your actual town. Enter a slightly-but-not-quite birthday if you feel you must have one out there. Enter information about yourself that people who know you could use to recognize you (if you want to be sought out) but that would not give an anonymous stranger tools to use against you.
Permanently deleting your account on facebook;
https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account
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