One wonders if Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow Facebook executives are wishing they could declare a do - over right about now , dating back to late April . That ’s when Facebook held its developer summit and unveiled plan to make the social connection even more ubiquitous on the World Wide Web — and that also lift a routine of serious privacy concerns among Facebook users . Since then , Facebook has been the subject of what seems like a daily drumbeat of headlines about its secrecy insurance , whether it ’s usersquitting the societal connection serviceor pundits advocating forimproved seclusion rules .
The optimist in me hopes that the public uproar inspires Facebook ’s direction to spend less cause onspinand more on unscramble the Gordian Knot that is managing your privacy configurations on the social meshwork site . ( It ’s an oft - quoted tidbit , but thisNew York Times reportbears repeating : to completely finagle your privacy on Facebook , you ’ve got to manage 50 scene with more than 170 options . That seems … inordinate . ) Until Facebook have up the requisite puff of whitened smoke to harbinger what came out of last hebdomad ’s seclusion summit , however , when it come to making certain your Facebook information is only reckon by the people you require to partake it with , you ’re still on your own .
Well , not entirely on your own—ReclaimPrivacy.org , a privacy consciousness group , has developed a tool that scans your Facebook privacy options to secernate you how secure your data is . The shaft is useable in the form of a bookmarklet that you get behind to the bookmarks bar of your Web web browser . Then you steer to Facebook ’s concealment configurations screen—ReclaimPrivacy.org helpfully provides a link — and come home on the bookmarker . After the tool scans your privateness configurations in six areas — Facebook ’s Instant Personalization feature ; your personal data ; contact entropy ; protagonist , tags , and connections information ; what your friends can share about you ; and whether applications programme can leak your personal datum — it separate you what areas are secure and where you may want to consider tweaking your configurations .
ReclaimPrivacy.org will scan your Facebook settings to let you know if any of your personal data is insecure.
Hold on a second , the privacy - focused among you might be saying : How do I know that ReclaimPrivacy.org will respect my privacy . The Website say it never sees your Facebook data nor does it share your personal information . It also publishes thesource codification for its scanning toolin the name of transparence .
ReclaimPrivacy.org will scan your Facebook preferences to have you recognise if any of your personal data is unsafe . I used the ReclaimPrivacy.org putz on my own Facebook account to see how it worked , prove it both on Safari 4 and Firefox 3.6 . go the image scanner takes just a few seconds , and I got a light-green unassailable label for Instant Personalization , as well as forestall friend and applications from unwittingly deal my data . Three orbit were flagged with a lily-livered caution label — my personal information , touch information , and booster , tags , and link data . ( According to reports elsewhere on the Internet , there ’s a third recording label — a crimson “ insecure ” masthead . That one did n’t appear in my tests , which I guess is a sign that my paranoia and mistrust of my fellow human beings is good for something . )
The ReclaimPrivacy.org tool provide helpful connexion for adjust any configurations it flag as problematic . To secure my personal data , I tap the append link and falsify my biographical info so that only my Facebook supporter could see it . Hitting the rescan release play up a green inviolable recording label for my personal information .
ReclaimPrivacy.org will scan your Facebook settings to let you know if any of your personal data is insecure.
stop up my contact selective information and friends , tags , and connections datum prove more problematic . I ’ve determine my Facebook preferences to allow for anyone to add me as a friend or place me a message . That apparently raises a caution sword lily for ReclaimPrivacy.org , though it ’s one I ’m willing to live with . ( What ’s the point of being on a social internet only to make it difficult for people to recover you ? Besides , I compute I can disregard any champion requests or messages that hit me as hinky . ) As for champion , tags , and association , I can only approximate that ReclaimPrivacy is interested that I ’ve made my hometown , instruction , and piece of work info visible to anyone . ( No one must ever know that Philip Michaels is employed by Macworld ! ) While I can understand that some Facebook users may not want to share that specific data , I ’m ok with having it out there just as I ’m fine with ReclaimPrivacy.org letting me know that I may want to rethink that stance if I want to be completely secure .
There ’s one affair about the ReclaimPrivacy.org tool that strike me as funny : When I scanned my Facebook setting in Firefox , I got the all clear on everything — even the categories still flagged with a sensationalistic cautiousness recording label in Safari . My takeaway message ? As helpful as the ReclaimPrivacy.org puppet is — and it is very helpful — it ’s not a silver heater for every privacy concern you ’ll have on Facebook . The good weapon system you have is still your own vulgar sentience — though a little clarity from Facebook itself would be welcome , too .
[ Macworld.com executive editor Philip Michaels request that you keep his employment information under your lid . ]
