PrivacyFix: Fixes your Online Privacy Settings

There are many sites you use everyday and social sites like Facebook and Gmail collect and have with them a lot of your data. This data can be from the sites you visit, your online shopping habits and a host of other information that you might not be aware about. In addition to this Facebook keeps making a log of changes to their privacy policies. It is therefore important for you to be able to keep a tab and be on top of it all. You might not even be aware where you need to go on these sites to fix your privacy settings. PrivacyFix is an online add-on available for Chrome and FireFox that helps you get the job done.

Once you add PrivacyFix to Chrome or FireFox you will need to click on run PrivacyFix setup on the site. One the app is setup it will then run a check on your privacy settings on Facebook and Google and guide you through all your default settings. If there is anything you want to fix simply click on the fix icon. It is a simple app and even if you have no use for it right now you will be made aware of your auto-settings, which you can then tune if you want.

PrivacyFix for Chrome and FireFox

Now that PrivacyFix has been discontinued, find a helpful guide here on how to fix your online Privacy.

Facebook launches new privacy settings and privacy guide

Facebook has launched privacy settings with a whole new design. When you click on Privacy Settings you are taken to a whole new page where things seem simpler and easier to understand. The options however remain the same and  you need to play around a little to get it right. There is also a guide that has been launched to help explain all of these settings.

To understand each of these settings Facebook has got a page that explains all of this and is available here. We are also posting the guide in this post if you would like to read through it. The New Privacy page on Facebook now looks like this.

Choose Your Privacy Settings

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  Basic Directory Information

  
  

  To help real world friends find you, some basic information is open to everyone. We also suggest setting basics like hometown and interests to everyone so friends can use those to connect with you. View settings
  

  
  

  
  


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  Sharing on Facebook

  
  

  
  

  
  
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    Everyone
    
  
  
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    Friends of Friends
    
  
  
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    Friends Only
    
  
  
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    Recommended
    
  
  
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    Custom
    
  
  

  
  

  
  

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    	Everyone	Friends of Friends	Friends Only	Other
    My status, photos, and posts
    Bio and favorite quotations
    Family and relationships
    Photos and videos I'm tagged in
    Religious and political views
    Birthday
    Can comment on posts
    Email addresses and IM
    Phone numbers and address

    
    
    
    

    
    
    
    

  
  

  
  

  
  Customize settings
  

  
  

  
  This is your current setting.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

Applications and Websites Edit your settings for using applications, games and websites.

Block Lists Edit your lists of blocked people and applications.

Controlling How You Share Learn more about your privacy on Facebook.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Backlash over New Facebook Privacy Policy

Facebook faces criticism because of their privacy policy. Digital right groups and bloggers have heaped criticism on Facebook's changing privacy policy. Critics said that Facebook was moving towards an even more open policy nudging people to share their updates with everyone and made them found easily on the internet. The changes were first introduced on Dec 9 asking people to update their privacy settings.

"Facebook is nudging the settings toward the 'disclose everything' position," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the US Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic). "That's not fair from the privacy perspective."
Epic said it was analysing the changes to see if they amounted to trickery."


"In a statement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said: "These new 'privacy' changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. "
It added: "Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data."

There has been a lot of backlash on the Facebook blog with users showing their disapproval. 

Is Facebook moving towards being more like Twitter. Do they want everyone to be more open and share everything. But that was not the point in the first place. Facebook users came to the site to connect with friends and maintain their contact within their own private circles. The new privacy policy is for nudging users to be more open and share more with everyone and not restrict their updates only to their friends.

An original post by

Sociolatte