Facebook Privacy Settings

Along with the ability to add and share all this information online, Facebook also created ways to keep some sections of a Profile more private than others. Some people put up barriers that reflect real life, only accepting friends they personally know. The easiest way to share what you want with whom you want, however, is to use Facebook’s built-in privacy settings and friend lists.

As discussed in the previous section, privacy settings allow you to control who can see your contact information. They also allow you to control who can see your personal information, including your birthday, favorite quotes, interests, education and work info, and relationship status. You can also determine who is allowed to post on your wall, tag you in photos or videos, or view your Profile in both Facebook and public search results. Photo album settings are determined on a case-by-case basis, so you can make some albums available to all friends, and others just a select group of people. You can also control what you share with outside websites, as well as what your friends can share about you.

Privacy settings also allow you to see which applications are running on your Profile, adjust app settings, and block or remove old apps you no longer use or want. For marketers, the more open a person keeps his privacy settings, the more data you can collect or use for targeting.

Friend lists and groups

To make adjusting privacy settings easier, you can segment your friends into handy groups or lists and fine-tune your settings in bulk. For example, you might create a list for work colleagues and allow them full access to your personal information, but restrict some photo albums. Just keep in mind that a friend’s settings are determined by the most restrictive list they belong to. So, if you have a close friend whom you also work with, and you want him to view the most open settings for your Profile, you won’t want to lump him in with other work colleagues.

You can also create exceptions to settings to keep only a few people (a former boyfriend or girlfriend, perhaps) from seeing certain parts of your Profile. Just choose Customize from the Privacy Settings menu and select the items you want to hide from certain friends. Then type the friend’s name and click Save Settings to keep that piece of information private. Or, if you really don’t want to be bothered by someone or to let a person find you at all, you can add her to your block list. Simply scroll to the bottom of her Profile’s left navigation column and click Report/Block.