May 13, 2010

Setting privacy settings on Facebook requires many clicks



Wow. Send out a thank you to the New York Times which uncovered the privacy settings for Facebook: 50 settings with 170 options.

An article, The price of Facebook Privacy? Start clicking, and a graphic maps out what you can do with Facebook's general privacy settings, ads and application settings.  

(Find general privacy settings under Account, Privacy Settings - See illustration above - and Facebook ads  under Account, Account Settings - See illustration below. And for more fun, check out Application Settings.)

 Plus the NYT shares information like the growth spurt of the Facebook privacy policy:
  • 1,004 words in 2005; 5,830 words in 2010
  • Longer then the United Staes Constitution without the amendments.
Facebook also has a guide to privacy, which is where you can find its policy, and details about the most recent update. Facebook suggests the world will be a better place if you allow "Everyone" to see everything. The New York Times had no recommendation.

I tend to recommend Friends or Only Me settings for most people, cautioning that once you put something on the Internet consider that someone somewhere will know at some point in time.

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