Facebook and Privacy Concerns
From ITS Wiki
Today, our Technology Tip is provided by Dave Frey. Dave is our Associate Director for Information Technology Services. He has been a part of the Centre ITS staff for fifteen years. Dave’s tip shares information about Facebook’s latest privacy breach and things you can do to help protect yourself if you are a Facebook user (and that would be most of us).
Have you heard? Another privacy concern regarding Facebook. The latest issue centers around a recent Wall Street Journal article (see link below) reporting that popular apps were sending Facebook IDs to advertising and tracking companies. A Facebook ID is a unique sequence of numbers that links to a user’s information. With this ID, companies can discover your name, gender, age and more for use in marketing. Even with the most strict privacy settings you can be affected because your Facebook ID is attached to your name and there is no way to hide your name on Facebook. The company says it will soon deploy technology to remedy this latest concern.
Our ITS department doesn’t support Facebook questions/issues, but we do see the value of information that can protect you and your privacy. So read on to find some things you can do to help protect yourself while you wait on the Facebook security upgrades.
To protect most of your information set your privacy options to the most secure/strict level.
• To access these controls, click Account>Privacy Setting. In the Applications and Websites section you can click Edit Settings. Then select Edit Settings next to Applications You Use. You should now be able to adjust each app individually. Click Edit Settings next to an app name to display its options and specify the information the app can access. If an app requires certain information it will specify this.
• You can also “Remove unwanted or spammy applications” in this section. Click Remove to delete any apps you don’t want. (Note: You may have to click on the name of the application first in order to see the Remove button.)
• To freeze communication from apps to users you can “Turn off all platform applications.” This means you won’t receive app requests (like messages asking you to join FarmVille).
• To limit the information that your friends’ apps can access about you, look for “Info accessible through your friends” and click on Edit Settings. Uncheck anything you don’t want to share with your friends’ apps.
For more reading on the latest breach check out the articles below:
From the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304772804575558484075236968.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
From the Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/10/19/privacy_issues_dog_facebook/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5
From the Los Angeles Times http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/10/facebook-acknowledges-privacy-issue-with-third-party-applications.html