Google & Facebook Friending Privacy

Over the past week every other headline seems to be about privacy online.  Google and Facebook have both been making headlines about questionable security practices.  Each of these online giants touches our lives on a daily basis and it is important to stay on top of their security practices.

Google has many countries across the world are in an up roar about “accidental collection” of personal information from the public Wi-Fi Networks.  Many countries, including the US, have started an investigation to whether or not they breached data protection and computer hacking laws.  Google is claiming they overlooked this problem and that they did not use the gathered information for any other purpose then to improve services.   Look for more headlines regarding Google’s oversight and how they will be correcting their privacy issues.

Facebook has been topping the headlines with their privacy settings issues that affect all of their 400 million users.  So, what is going on with Mark Zuckerberg and all of his friends at Facebook?  They have been receiving a lot of heat for their lack of privacy and bulky privacy settings page.  The current privacy settings are defaulted to public, and you have to navigate your way through about 170 different granular settings to make the switch to having a more private setting.  Facebook users have been voicing their concerns for months about the default privacy settings and awkward granular privacy settings page.  Finally, Facebook has listened to the users and will be making significant changes to their privacy.  The changes will include;

• Sharing
  • One page of privacy settings that will have a default privacy setting, along with separate levels of privacy.
  • Granular controls are still available to use, but do not have to be used.
• Basic Directory Information
  • Less publically available information.
  • Only necessary information for people to find you on the site.
• Platforms
  • Control over what applications (Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc) and sites have access to your information.

You can read more about the updated privacy settings on Facebook.  Mark Zuckerberg also posted a nice blog and video today reviewing the changes to the privacy settings. These new privacy controls will start taking effect gradually over the next few weeks, so you won’t see them right away.   If you are interested in changing your privacy settings, you can log into your Facebook account, go to Account, and select privacy settings.

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