A Guide to Facebook Privacy

Facebook’s new privacy settings, simplified. 

 
Users of Facebook have found the above privacy note popping up when they log in to the social networking service. There is a chance you might have skipped this, for later. If you continue, you can instantly set your desired settings which are explained in detail below. 

Facebook has basically decided to let you control everything you share on it. You decide who can view what you share and who can’t.

Sharing Links, Images and Videos 


Facebook has changed the way people are sharing links, images and videos with their friends and others. A survey ranked it as one of the top link-sharing services around.

Now, you can configure whether anything you share is visible with three sets of people – your friends, friends of friends or anybody who comes across your profile in Facebook.

Just find the Lock symbol near the right-bottom of the post sharing text box, and select your preferred option (as shown above in the screenshot).

If you click on Customize, another screen would pop up that additionally allows you to hide posts from specific people in your friends list. 

Profile View

With the changes in Facebook, most profiles have now been opened up to Facebook prowlers and stalkers. With users unlikely to extensively define their privacy settings, most Walls, Photos, Albums and profile information is now available for anybody to view and save.


To change the same, you can head to Privacy Settings at the top right-corner of your Facebook page. Once there, head to Profile Information and individually set options for what you would like to make visible to friends, friends of friends or everyone in general.


You can also click Preview My Profile on the same page, to take a look at how your profile would appear to specific people. See above screenshot.

Photos and Albums

To set privacy in Photos and Albums, head to the Photos privacy page here (you must be logged in to Facebook). Set your preferred options for mobile uploads, Wall posts, albums and Profile pictures on this page.

Contact Information

If you are keen on protecting your contact information written in your profile (like email addresses, IM usernames and phone numbers), then head to the Contact Information page here.

Indexing in Search Engines


If you would not want your Facebook profile link to appear as a search result in Google and other search engines, then head to Search in Privacy Settings and un-check the Allow indexing option (as shown in the screenshot above) to ensure your profile link does not get indexed and appear in search results.

You can also decide whether you want your profile result to appear in searches within Facebook itself.

Related Reading: More Tips on Facebook