Hi there to all the readers. It’s been a couple of days since Facebook implemented their new privacy settings and, as a matter fact, also tweaked some settings. I am pretty much sure most of you have adopted this new privacy settings. Some of you might have just clicked your way through the transition state while some of you might have taken the time to go through your settings all over again. Whatever group you are in let’s take some time to review the privacy settings once again.
1. What my profile looks like to others?
First of all let’s check how your profile appears to strangers. Visit http://www.facebook.com/privacy, or go to your Settings -> Privacy Settings. Click “Profile information” and then “Preview my profile”. Now what you see there is how your profile will be displayed to a stranger.
If you have categorized your friends into groups, and have set different settings for them, you can type the name of one friend from each group and see how your profile appears to each of them. If you haven’t categorized your friends, then i would suggest that you do it first because without doing that you will never be able to have complete control of your privacy.
2. Public Search Results
Next thing to focus here is Search index. I have found that, though i have opted to use my old settings during the recent transition, my profile was allowed for public search indexing. Which means, anyone can google or search my profile from search engines. To change the setting, go to Settings -> Privacy Settings.
Click “Search” and uncheck the “Allow Indexing” option for Public Search Results. As for the other setting, “Facebook search results”, choose your preferred option.
3. Friends List
Coming to your profile page, the most talk about with the new privacy setting is the friends’ list. Let’s have a look. In your profile page,
Click on the pencil icon at the top of your friends list. Check or uncheck the “Show my friends on my profile” according to your preference. You can also do the same for the other information boxes shown on your profile page, though they are directly affected by the settings that you have chosen in your Privacy Settings and will not appear to unauthorized friends or group of friends. If you are wondering how do i know who sees what, on my profile, then you might consider reading point number 1 once again, which we have discussed above.
4. Privacy per post
As Facebook have announced, users now have control over every post or update a user does. You can now control your every update on a post per post basis including your status message. You might have noticed a lock icon on your publishers window after the new update.
All you have to do is for every post you have to choose a privacy setting and before you publish it, so that your latest post does not hit back at you. I find this new privacy control rather cool. Just think you enter something like, “Not feeling well, called in sick 
” and publish it for you friends under “Work and Colleagues”, and post another one like “Looking for friends for a couple of beers” or “Looking for friends to go shopping” for another group of friends. 
5. Applications
After all the settings are set and in place, there is one more thing to remember, that your information along with your friends are still available and is not private when you use any application like Facebook games. Settings regarding applications and the stories they publish on your profile can be set using the Applications Settings.
Regarding more privacy settings, please go through the other Settings and Privacy Settings How To’s in the tutorial section.
There have been mixed reactions to the recent change of settings and people still cry foul over the management of privacy and its abused, the only sure-shot way of staying completely private is to permanently delete your Facebook and other social-networking site’s account.
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