By Bill Pytlovany
Even our local news channels have been reporting that Facebook has simplified their privacy policies. What they failed to notice is how Facebook is encouraging users to disclose even more information to “Everyone”.
The Facebook privacy news has also given credibility to the malicious phishing attempts that arrive in your Email with the subject “Facebook Account Update”. Some of my friends who would normally know better have fallen for these spam Emails thinking it’s part of the newly announced privacy policies.
Instead what Facebook users should see is the following pop up when they sign on.
Like me your first reaction may be hurray! Facebook has listened to us and will be increasing our privacy. Guess again. When you click to continue you’ll see a revamped version of their current privacy settings. Unless you’re paying attention much of the information you only want “Friends” to see will now be available to “Everyone”. In all the accounts I tested Facebook inconsistently changed the setting from “Friends” to either “Everyone” or “Friends of Friends”.
Unless you explicitly tell Facebook to use your old settings you’ll be opening up your personal information to the world.
This post is excerpted with Bill’s permission from his blog
