So Facebook has made some changes to privacy that I didn’t like much.  Thought I’d pass it on.  The new change is that if one of your friends uses a Facebook application (any application) and it requests personal information, Facebook will share that information to them without your knowledge.  So even if you don’t want your birthday published to anyone but your friends, if they visit an app that asks for it, the app gets it.  This takes place unless you specify otherwise!

So what exactly does Facebook share.  I took a look at my Privacy Settings for Applications and Websites and here’s what they tell you that they share and what they were set to.

• Personal info – enabled
• Status Updates – enabled
• Online Presence – enabled
• Website – enabled
• Family and relationship status – enabled
• Relationship details – disabled
• Education and work – enabled
• My Videos – enabled
• My Links – enabled
• My Notes – enabled
• My Photos – enabled
• About Me – enabled
• My Birthday – enabled
• My hometown – enabled
• My religious and political views – disabled

So out of 15 settings, only 2 are disabled by default.  Facebook has unilaterally decided what information you are sharing.

So what’s the big deal?  Well, in most cases it may not bother you too much.  Unless you find ads for a singles website using pictures of your wife, daughter, sister or niece on it troublesome.  (It’s happened to people.)  But probably  (hopefully?), most of these applications and ads are going to use it strictly for business purposes and do not have evil purposes in mind.

However…  Not all apps, ads, or sites have pure intentions.  And no, Facebook doesn’t have the reputation of checking that hard to see if its legit.  They make money off these things so its in their best interests NOT to check too closely.  Some ads and apps are not nice and they will provide information to the pushers of spam, spyware and other fun stuff.  If a spammer wanted legitimate email addresses to spam, what if they create an app and pull every email address from every person to use the app and all of their friends email addresses?  It would work.  That info is up for grabs under the default settings.

Ok, so I’ve complained a bit now.  So how about fixing it.  In the upper right corner of your Facebook home page, click the arrow next to Account Settings.  A menu drops down and on it, click Privacy Settings.  On the page that comes up, click Applications and Websites.  Find the link What your friends can share about you and click it.  This finally gets you to the page where you can set your privacy preferences.  Set it to taste and click Save Changes.  That’s it, you have now gained a bit more control over what information is being shared about you.

Keep an eye on the Privacy Settings in Facebook.  Things change over time and sometimes there are some big changes.