Worried about privacy on Facebook? Here are some tips

From photos of slinging back shot after shot at a local bar or lounging on the beach after calling in sick, learning how to properly apply privacy options on Facebook is essential to keeping your friends, your job and your security.

Lately, there has been news that Facebook obtained the private phone contacts of some users. Facebook says some users simply installed the Facebook app onto their smartphones and agreed to sync their phone-contacts with the social-media site.

It’s easy to delete those numbers; just go to the Phonebook Contacts page. In the right-hand column, Facebook describes how to remove your mobile contacts. Click on the linked words “this page” and on the next page, hit the Remove button.

To delete your phone number, click on Profile in the upper-right corner of your FB homepage and then click on the grey Edit Profile button in the upper-right corner. In the left-hand column, click on Contact Information. Under Phones, you’ll see any numbers you’ve registered. Remove any numbers you see there and click on Save Changes.

Still worried about your privacy on Facebook? Here are some general tips.

Connecting on Facebook

In the first section of Facebook’s privacy page you can control who can search for you, who can send you friend requests and who can send you messages.

There are options that allow others to see who your friends are and all your personal information, such as where you work, your education, activities and where you live.

To keep such personal information under wraps you have options. They include sharing with everyone on Facebook, anyone in your networks, just your friends and anyone in your networks, friends of your friends or your friends only.

Sharing on Facebook

In this section you can control who can see what you share on the site — everything from your status, photos and posts, your favourite quotes and your birthday.

Again, you have options: everyone, friends of friends, friends only, recommended or custom.

To change these, press the “Customize Settings” link to refine your choices.

To ensure that your photos and videos are at your desired privacy level, scroll to the bottom to “edit privacy settings for existing photo albums and videos.” This is where you can make sure those photos you posted two years ago are at the same level of privacy as the ones you posted last week.

Apps, games and websites

This is where you can control which applications and games you use. Next to the list of “apps you use” hit the “edit settings” button where you can remove an application by clicking the “X.”

This section also deals with information which is accessible through your friends. This includes things such as your bio, photos, videos, links and current location. Again, you can pick and choose which you wish to share.

Most Facebook users will want to uncheck all those boxes so your friend’s applications can’t access your information.

Finally, you can disable public search, which means your profile won’t come up in search engines such as Google.

Block Lists

The block feature lets you not only block a person, but applications and event invites from specific users.

Also, the “Preview my profile” button allows you to see what your profile looks like to everyone else.

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Skype gets into bed with Facebook

VOICE OVER IP (VoIP), chat and video conferencing outfit Skype has been talking up its future with the social networking web site Facebook.

Skype’s recent acquisition by Microsoft puts it in the box seats to work with Facebook, allowing both firms to push VoIP services to Facebook’s social network. Microsoft, which was an early investor in Facebook, doesn’t view the social network as a threat and has worked with it in the past, especially with its search engine Bing.

However Facebook could be a big help to Microsoft as it tries to claw back some of the $8.5bn it forked over for a company that turns over a negligible profit. Forbes reports that not only will Skype appear on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system but that Skype VP Neil Stevens wants Skype to be a service, not an application.

In order to make that dream come true ever tighter integration with other applications, and in particular Facebook, is on the agenda. As The INQUIRER reported last year, a VoIP service is the logical next step for Facebook, which needs to enrich its ‘social graph’ with more real time data. Having Skype provide a service to do just that will be beneficial for all concerned, except perhaps with regard to the privacy of Facebook users.

Stevens told Forbes that Skype’s agreement with Facebook is not a “one-time, one-product” deal, adding, “We have a plan to build out a number of products with Facebook… we’ll be Facebook’s key partner for communications.”

Facebook recently launched a video chat service that uses Skype, and Stevens said that most of the bugs have been ironed out and it will be rolled out to more users over the next few weeks. After it has rolled out that service Facebook will start to offer outbound calling to phones, requiring users to pay with Skype credits, though it is expected that Facebook will get a cut of charges for all call minutes from its users too.

Due to the popularity of Facebook, this might be the only chance Skype and its new parent, Microsoft, have of making money. History has shown that even though Skype is immensely popular, as a standalone application its revenue generation possibilities are relatively limited. Perhaps tagging onto Facebook’s popularity will help Microsoft turn its fortunes around. µ

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