You may think that you are only sharing your Facebook posts and private information with a few friends, but unless you have a look at your Facebook profile from the point of view of a total stranger, you don’t really know if you have all the privacy settings ticked off.
Below is a short video I made today to show you a neat trick so that you can see what a total stranger would see if they searched for your name on Facebook.
Why is it important to have a private profile? Did you know that all your photos, your date of birth, your address your phone number, where you work, where you went to college can be used to either steal your identity and have fake accounts set up in your name, or at least be used so that scam emails can be sent to you that look so close to being from institutions that you are a client of, that you may in fact reply to these emails and have money stolen from you. You may have enough information on Facebook for your identity to be very closely replicated, enough to convince you that the recent email you received from your bank to get in touch is real.
How much do you want a stranger to be able to use of your information. What if your family photos ended up being sold as Stock photos to be used in advertising?
What are your children sharing with complete strangers who are stalking Facebook?
Watch the video and be sure that you are only publicising the information you feel comfortable with sharing to the world if anything at all.
UPDATE: December 2012
Change
Facebook have added a Privacy Shortcuts menu. You can access the link to see what you are sharing publicly from this menu. See the picture below!
To start cleaning up your profile so that most of your private information is hidden from a complete stranger, this post should help! Clean Up Your Facebook Profile!
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