How to protect your privacy from Facebook breaches

Protect Your Privacy From Facebook Breaches

Facebook faced yet another storm of controversy over privacy issues after an October 2010 Wall Street Journal report revealed that all of Facebook’s most popular third-party applications and games violated company rules by collecting personal data from users and passing it along to advertisers. According to the report, “The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings.”

The data collected by third-party applications is the “Facebook ID.” Every Facebook user has a Facebook ID, which is the number tied to the user profile. Even if a user has a private Facebook profile, anyone with the Facebook ID number can use it to look up a person’s name or, potentially, find the names of the user’s Facebook friends. If users don’t have their Facebook profile secured, the Facebook ID can reveal the information shared with everyone in their profile, including their age, address, photos, wall posts and more.

Just a few of the apps highlighted in the Wall Street Journal report include FarmVille, FrontierVille and Texas HoldEm Poker. These games are wildly popular, boasting tens of millions of users worldwide, and are a huge source of profit for both Facebook and the app developers.

In a response to the Wall Street Journal report, Facebook engineer Mike Vernal explained in a company blog post, “In most cases, developers did not intend to pass this information [user ID], but did so because of the technical details of how browsers work.” Vernal also said that “press reports have exaggerated the implications of sharing a UID” and that “knowledge of a UID doesn’t enable anyone to access private user information without explicit user consent.”

While Facebook is working to solve the problem, which affects not only Facebook but a variety of other websites, here are a couple of proactive steps for how to protect your privacy from Facebook breaches.

Avoid unnecessary applications.

Facebook games like FarmVille are notoriously addictive. That’s why Zynga and similar social gaming companies have become so successful in the last few years. Of course, just because the games are fun to play doesn’t mean you should install them on your Facebook profile.

Facebook applications offer the weakest privacy and security protections. Before giving any app access to your profile, you should consider the risk versus the reward. If you use Facebook for keeping in touch with friends and family and avoid third-party applications and games, you’ll still get a lot out of Facebook, and you’ll go a long way toward protecting your personal data from getting into the hands of advertisers and spammers.  This is an important step in learning how to protect your privacy from Facebook breaches.

Keep your security settings tight.

Assuming you keep your Facebook security settings tight and only allow your friends to see your Facebook profile, you probably won’t lose any personal data to Facebook privacy breaches. Yes, some companies may have gained access to your real name, which in the digital age provides access to a lot of information, but at least that’s all they got.

If, on the other hand, you don’t keep your Facebook privacy settings secure, losing control of your Facebook ID means you’re giving up information about not only who you are but also where you live, what you like, who your friends are and what you do for a living.  Be responsible with your online identity and learn how to protect your privacy from Facebook breaches