Facebook's new privacy rules reduce users' privacy, says EFF

Summary: They are introducing new privacy controls but when asking you to set the privacy controls are defaulting everything to public.

My conclusion: They are just trying to make their status updates more public like twitter. If you don't want that kind of thing don't use their default suggested settings.

I flipped everything back to my original privacy settings, an option FB gives you. What they may be counting on tho is the 100's of 1000's who won't take the time to do that or won't care. (can you imagine"???)

One of my accounts defaulted to their new settings, the other to my old settings (quite private). It was an interesting thing to see.

Except when they don't let you. There is some information that users used to control, that Facebook has now changed into "public information", and for which they're not offering a switch to make it private again. See the article's section on "The Ugly".

I put the link up on my page - maybe move to my status later.

turns out that the settings they say are hard to find and manage aren't so hard to find and manage. just took me about 20 seconds to fix that little "ugly"

Brilliant idea! I stole it immediately -- without giving you credit, of course!

The minute you sign up for "apps" all your data becomes public domain.
I have started to ignore all apps - sorry Cafe World people....and will not
engage in any future apps.

Me too.

Had this open in a tab, will plonk before closing:

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/12/10/facebooks-new-privacy-settings-5-things-you-should-know

I don't put anything on Facebook or anywhere else on the internet that I don't mind being seen by others/strangers. I am in complete control of that regardless of what any social network or app does to provide security/privacy.

I make use of the privacy settings and other account settings to filter what gets put on my wall from others, and to filter/block the publicity of the usage tracking that is spit out to the walls of others. That's where I feel I have very little customized control. It seems to be an all or nothing choice on what most people and apps are allowed to pollute our walls with and still allow them to function.

Well it's not that easy with everyone, Butrflynet. Some of us don't want
employees, students etc. to see what their superiors are doing/writing privately
with friends.
I also don't want any consumer guides being able to tap into anything without my prior approval. Simply being a fan of a certain group can put you into a category you don't want to be associated with in actuality. A simple app as
the "Mafia" can get you into the public eye and would you want a prospective
employer have a look at your Mafia activity? (This is just an example, I don't
know if you indeed are playing on the "Mafia" game).

I have a doctor's appointment so I'll mull over the Facebook rules when I come back. Didn't give it too much thought when it recommended the latest rules as default.

Everyone make sure that they look through ALL their privacy settings again -
some of them I had marked "for friends only" were all of a sudden "for everyone to see" and those were not the settings that popped up initially
with the privacy changes.

Still not a facebook user (although maybe I am, as I checked a couple of people's photos. Egads..)

http://www.crn.com/security/222001804;jsessionid=ZGY5T35RXTOU1QE1GHPCKHWATMY32JVN

Going to check my settings again. I personally do not use any of the apps any more and ignore requests from people for their apps. I have never use mafia wars and I actually find it quite annoying to see so much activity of others on this.

Wait, I just remembered that I can hide certain apps etc. Thanks for making me thing of this.

Yes Intrepid, you can hide them.

One thing I was pleased with facebook is, that they didn't seem to change
any settings with minors. My daughter (14) has a facebook account and as
I was to check her account and change it back to privacy settings, I noticed
that nothing was changed from the original privacy setting. So that's a relief
to see as most kids don't bother with such settings.

I checked mine and they were not changed either. I am much older than 14.

I had forgotten that I had already hidden that dreaded Mafia Wars so I didn't have to see what the folks who enjoy that kind of thing were doing.

The wizard script had all my settings defaulting to the old settings. If I wanted the new settings, I had to purposely choose them. After closing it, I checked again the next day and all my settings are still as they were before -- my old settings, which were to share only with designated customized groups of my friends or with no one else.

The new privacy settings had no effect on my account and I didn't have to reset anything.