Protect Your Facebook Privacy and Mine

I have just learned that starting today Facebook will begin to share your public contact and profile information with other sites your friends visit. In fact, even if you do not share your information your friends will be able to but there is something you can do. Here’s what Facebook says...

What your friends can share about you through applications and websites
When your friend visits a Facebook Platform application or website, they may want to share certain information to make the experience more social. For example, a greeting card application may use your birthday information to prompt your friend to send a card.

If your friend uses an application or website that you do not use, you can control certain types of information the application can access. Please note that applications will be able to access your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, as well as any information that is visible to Everyone. They will also be able to access your Connections, but you can limit what they see. In those cases, although the information is considered a Connection, you can control whether an application can access it.

You'll find a personal and social experience the moment you arrive on our select partner sites -- currently Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora, and Yelp. We're working closely with these partners in a pilot program so you can quickly connect with your friends and see relevant content on their sites. These sites personalize your experience using your public Facebook information.

When you arrive on these sites, you'll see a notification from Facebook at the top of the page.

You can easily opt-out of experiencing this on these sites by clicking "No Thanks" on the blue Facebook notification on the top of partner sites.

OK so there are two things you need to do to resolve this issue.

1. Go to Account > Privacy Settings> Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization > Edit Settings, and uncheck "Allow". While there check all your personal contact information and pay attention to what you share with everyone. Choose, friends of friends, only friends or only me. Only friends should share with friends.

2. Send this post to all the friends you have either by posting a comment here or cutting and pasting parts of this post so they get the message.

Do it today before you forget.

Be well.