Facebook is Sharing Your Private Information Again and Congress is Looking Into It – Find Out How You Can Protect Yourself

You may have recently received posts from your Facebook friends that look something like this “Between today and tomorrow, the New FB Privacy setting called "Instant Personalization" goes into effect. The new setting shares your data with non-FB sites & it is automatically set to "Enabled". Go to Account>Privacy Settings>Apps & Websites>Instant Personalization>edit settings & uncheck "Enable". BTW If your friends don't do this, they will be sharing info about you as well. Please copy and repost.”You may have received a similar message in Oct 2010. Confused and wondering, exactly who is able to access your personal information on Facebook? You’re not alone and even Congress is asking Facebook for transparency and an explanation.CNN reported today that a letter was sent to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook from two co-chairs of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus asking Facebook to reveal secrets about Facebook's privacy policy that been changed frequently as of late. The letter gave Facebook 15 business days to respond to the inquiry.Can you blame the Caucus for wanting some answers for the American public? This inquiry follows Facebook's recent announcement - and postponement - of a plan to make the addresses and cell phone numbers of its users available to third-party websites and application developers (apps)."Please explain why Facebook, while previously acknowledging in its letter to us that sharing a [Facebook User ID] could raise user concerns, subsequently considered sharing of a user's home address and mobile phone number - even more sensitive personal information than a UID - to be information that should be more easily accessible to third parties," they wrote in the letter.CNN reported that they further took Zuckerberg to task writing, "Facebook initially announced the new feature in a blog post meant for developers. Does Facebook consider that prominent notice to users? If not, please describe how Facebook intended to notify users of this new feature."The query includes 11 questions and 4 sub-questions that probe the Facebook founder on whether the social networking site has considered the risks to children and teenagers as a result of the new policy, why the policy is needed, and why it was subsequently delayed.The same Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus sent a similar letter to Zuckerberg in October 2010 which sought answers on reported "privacy breaches." Zuckerberg responded two days after their requested nine business day deadline.From an enterprise perspective Social Media sites like Facebook enable businesses (including application developers) to offer and promote services, be more accessible to clients and prospects and build a following of those who “choose” to follow their pages and install their apps. Is Facebook taking it too far by sharing user information without their permission?Here’s what I think. Facebook is a fantastic medium for individuals, families and businesses to share information and keep in touch with friends and colleagues AND it’s free. All of the fun apps and games on Facebook were developed by someone and development costs money. Generally, nothing in life is free (except for your family and your health =)). You have to expect when using services like Facebook and adding apps to your page like Farmville; that someone, at some point must be making money, somehow. With that said, what’s bugging me is that when these changes are being made by Facebook, that Facebook is setting the default privacy setting so that your information will be public unless you find out about the change and go in to change the setting. Further I don’t feel that they are doing enough to make the public aware of the changes. I mean how hard would it be for Facebook to send a mass email to its members containing detailed information about their changes and intentions.Also Facebook seems to be flip flopping around, announcing a change, then retracting, then announcing it again? I think this and this alone is what has raised the eyebrow of the American Government. ? At the end of the day do we love Facebook? Yes. ? Do some of us spend hours per/day on it? Yes. ? Can business afford not to have a presence on Social Media Sites like Facebook? No. The bottom line is while many are squirming about some of Facebook’s recent decisions, we are going to continue using it. Here are my top suggestions for protecting your personal information on Facebook.1. Follow Mark Zuckerberg’s Blog. While Facebook has faced criticism for not doing enough to notify the public of privacy changes, Facebook did post each announcement on their blog, so following their blog may give you a leg up on finding out about upcoming changes.2. Assume that ALL the information you share online COULD be viewed by anyone. Don’t post things, personal information, propaganda, photos, videos or other behaviour that you wouldn’t want the world to see. Keep your super private stuff off of Facebook.3. The only way Facebook gets your mobile number to be able to share it, is if you have added the mobile app or if you have included your phone number in your profile. Stop using the mobile app and remove it from your account. Do you really have to check your Facebook on the go? Facebook doesn’t have my cell phone number to share, because I did not register for the app.4. Check your privacy setting once a month just to ensure nothing has been changed and that there is nothing new there.5. Try to keep your kids off of Facebook because of the obvious dangers. The US government isn’t concerned for no reason – (I won’t go into this topic as this is its own article =))I hope this information has been useful and for more information about Social Media Marketing please visit http://www.assureassess.com/socialmedia.