Facebook Bad News

Hi friends.

Here is some disturbing news. Facebook has recently made some very lucrative deals with search engine providers. Now search engines such as Google and more, have access to your personal information and posts. Personally, I don't want my Facebook messages available to the entire world through a search engine. Now every unscrupulous person in the world has access to all of your information on Facebook.

I may sound a little paranoid about this, but at least check it out for yourself.

Perhaps you have seen the new privacy screen when you login explaining new privacy settings. You probably should not ignore it. If you haven't already, check out your privacy settings. They will display your new settings as well as your old settings, and ask if you want to display your information to everyone or just to your friends. I had assumed that everyone simply meant everyone on Facebook, not the entire world. They specifically do not reference search engines except to say they MIGHT have access. To me, that's a little sneaky.

Here is a link to the Facebook privacy explanation page. Don't just gloss over it. It explains the changes they have made which allows the entire world to find and use all of your Facebook information, based on your privacy settings. I read this entire page and found that in one place it looks as though they are saying that ALL of your information is available to the world. Please be sure to read it carefully. There are 100's of 1000's of unscrupulous people out there that would jump for joy to have this information.

Here is how to make sure that your settings in Facebook do not allow the entire world access to the information you provide just for your friends. You could try to find all of these linkson Facebook for yourself, but this will save you a lot of time.

Log on to Facebook first. You may not get access to this page unless you do. Then come back here and click on this link. It is the new privacy information page.

http://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation.php?ref=pf

After reading, and if you want to check/change your settings, here is a link. This link will probably show you’re your information is available to everyone and search engines. Clicking on this will open your privacy setting control panel. Check each option and make the changes you want.

http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy#/settings/?tab=privacy

This article is referencing the fourth option on the list, which is,

Search
Control who can see your search result on Facebook and in search engines

On this page are two selections described here. The first is:

Facebook Search Results
Who can see your search result on Facebook

The options for this are:
Everyone
Friends of Friends
Friends.

The second selection is:

Public Search Results
Allow search engines to access your publicly available info and any information visible to Everyone

If checked, this option will allow Google and other search engines to index your information and make it available to the entire world. If you do NOT want your information made public to the entire world, un-check this box.

Of course, you make the decisions that suit you. I merely want you to be aware of your options.

I sure hope this helps someone to keep web predators out of their life.

Thank you and be blessed.