Dec
11
Don’t be a Facebook Fairy! Opt out of Facebook’s Beacon and be careful about what you reveal online
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While social networks are great for keeping in touch with a whole range of people, from current clients to old friends, your privacy is one of the biggest concerns or at least it should be! It doesn’t take much more than a couple of brain cells to figure out that you must be careful what you publicly post out there on the Internet. If it’s online and public, people are going to find it and if you’re not careful, sooner or later some sensitive information about you may fall into the wrong hands.
When Kevin Colvin recently requested emergency leave from his intern job at Anglo Irish Bank’s North American division, a couple of his crucial brain cells apparently decided to take leave too. Kevin got busted when his boss spotted a photo of him on Facebook dressed up as a fairy for a Halloween party when he was supposedly on special leave to attend a family emergency in New York. Absolutely hilarious stuff, but the incident should still be a huge eye-opener as to how careful you must be with the information you make public online about yourself.
Maybe it’s time to not only take a look at what you’re posting into your Facebook (or other social networking websites) but to also go into your account settings and review your privacy options carefully to carefully specify what information about yourself you want to make public and what you’d rather only share with trusted friends or specific network groups. Watch Geoffrey Ponder’s video below to get an overview of how to do this in Facebook and a rundown of the privacy options available.
Turn off your Facebook’s Beacon now!
One very important privacy aspect of Facebook that’s not covered in the video above is the controversial Beacon program that Facebook added at the beginning of November 2007. Before you get alarmed, you can now turn Beacon off and we’ll be telling you how!
Beacon is a program that sends data from external websites you visit or shop on to Facebook. This data appears on your profile allowing other users to see what you’ve been up to. This can of course have potentially unpleasant consequences as was the case with the poor guy whose purchase of an engagement ring for his girlfriend was prematurely revealed to her by his Facebook profile.
But more pertinently, Beacon gives advertisers a wealth of information about your online habits so they can better target the advertising you see. There have also been reports of the tracking going on even when you are not logged into Facebook. It’s just stunning how Facebook could be so naive as to not see the huge backlash coming when they initially forced Beacon upon their users.
On the 5th December 2007, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg apologised for the controversy and acknowledged it was an overzealous attempt to increase profit margins. He also said that Facebook would allow users to turn off Beacon completely. He said:
Last week we changed Beacon to be an opt-in system, and today we’re releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely. You can find it here. If you select that you don’t want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won’t store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.
So, if you use Facebook, do your privacy a favour and turn Beacon off. Here are more detailed instructions about how to do it. You really only need to follow the first six steps. The extra bit for Firefox users is added security, but not absolutely necessary. And remember, as you enjoy the benefits of social networking, give a thought to your privacy and be careful about what information you reveal online. You never know who may be watching!
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One Response to “Don’t be a Facebook Fairy! Opt out of Facebook’s Beacon and be careful about what you reveal online”
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View John Beckley's profile
Good Post..ill upate my profile!
Congrats on the Top 50 Real Estate Bloggers!!! Job well done!