The guide to maintaining your Facebook privacy

Every now and then someone or the other asks me about how they should ensure their privacy on Facebook. Then there are quite a few others who are not on Facebook simply because they are mortally scared that their much-cherished privacy would be intruded upon. Those who seek advice may not be Facebook-savvy. And those who are scared, their fear is not that misplaced either.

What most don't know is that existing tools on Facebook go a long way in helping you keep your privacy. Quite a long way. But then, it cannot be described as something that is cent per cent perfect. Nothing on the Internet is. Those who would jump on me for pointing out that small gap, could do well to remember that your privacy could also be compromised through any of those web-based email providers. But all that is splitting hairs. Let's get to the point.

There are a number of things one should do on Facebook to maintain one's privacy. Different people pursue different means to do it. Using various combinations and, occasionally, permutations to do the needful. I do mine in a particular way. I have decided to share mine because I feel I should share them with the close-to-2000 friends and acquaintances I have on my Facebook list. And I hope they, in turn, will share this too on Facebook.

But first, a small tutorial for those who are not aware — how to create a "friend list". This is a feature that I personally use to the hilt. You should too.

Friend Lists are a way to organise your list of friends on Facebook and to target privacy settings. You can also filter your view of each list’s stream of activity on the home page. Friend Lists are the foundation of your Facebook privacy settings. To create and customise your own Friend Lists, follow these steps:

Go to the Friends page. Or click the Account drop-down at the top right of any page, and then click on "Edit Friends."
Click the Create New List button at the top of the page to create a new list, or type the name of a friend in the left-side search field to add a friend to an existing list. You can also click on an existing Friend List on the left-side of the page, and then click on the Edit List button.

If you have more than two Friend Lists, you can easily add or remove friends from lists by using the drop-down menu that appears next to their names on the all "Friends" tab of the Friends page.

There are three things that you must keep in mind here:

Whenever you add a new friend, remember to add him/her to one or more of these lists.
This is one element you cannot be careless about. Many of the tips that follow depend on this particular feature.
Go through all the tips listed on this page. It will give you a fairly good idea about what you can hide, what you can show, and how much you want to show a particular person, or how much you would want to hide from him/her. Only then start creating your lists.
Keep experimenting with lists. The more you fiddle around, the more secure you would be. Take it from me; I learnt it the hard way.

Now, let's get started.

Facebook search results and elementary information
If you want privacy, it probably means you wouldn't like to be found. Especially by creeps, or those you know but do not like.
- Click on the Account dropdown on the top-right. Go to Privacy Settings. OR, go to the page directly.
- Under Basic directory information, click on View settings.
- Under Search for me on Facebook, select the option you want.
Flipside: If you select Friends, remember no one else will be able to find you on Facebook.
Friend requests from the unwanted
People, especially goodlooking women, get tired of friend requests. You can bring this down to a bare minimum.
- Under the same Basic directory information settings mentioned in (1), select the 'Friends of Friends' option for Send me friend requests.
- Unless there are common friends, now no one can add you as a friend.
Flipside: Suppose you and a long-lost friend both have similar settings and there are no common friends, then the two of you might never meet on Facebook.
Messages from strangers
Messages after a point of time can be bugging, especially if those are from strangers with stranger messages.
- Under the same Basic directory information settings mentioned in (1), select an option for Send me messages.
Flipside: Suppose you and a long-lost friend both have similar settings and there are no common friends, then the two of you might never meet on Facebook.
Basic information about yourself
Now, you wouldn't really want to divulge a lot of information about yourself. You might have some close friends on your list, and there might be some distant acquaintances. And I am not even talking of total strangers here. This is where you need to pay a little attention since you might need to use your Friend Lists for the first time.
- Under the same Basic directory information settings mentioned in (1), you will find three heads: See my education and work, See my current location and hometown, and See my interests and other Pages.
- For each, click on the option dropdown and select Custom
- Under Make this visible to, select Only Me. But in case you want select people to see the information, select Specific people
- In the box above Only the people above can see this, key in the name of the friends who can see this info. Better still, key in the name of the particular Friend List.
- Now's where it gets better. Under Hide this from, type a Friend List who, according to you, should not be accessing all this info.
- Next, go to the Preview my Profile tab at the top.
- What you see is what it will look to someone not on your friends list.
- To see what it looks to a particular friend, in the box next to Preview how your Profile appears to a specific person type in the name of the person.
- Now you know who sees what. You should use this feature extensively.
- In particular, pay attention to Posts by me and Friends can post on my Wall (to disable wall totally for everyone).
Friends list visibility
This is one aspect most people are bothered about. For good reason. I have myself known for a certainty that there had been people who would delve into my friends list to pick people to be added as friends. Those are the headhunters.
- Under the same Basic directory information settings mentioned in (1), select 'Only Me' for See my friend list.
Flipside: None really, unless you are in the habit of flaunting your list.
Other info on Facebook
There are loads of other information that you might want to hide or accord varying levels of privacy.
- Click on the Account dropdown on the top-right. Go to Privacy Settings. OR, go to the page directly.
- Under Sharing on Facebook, click on Customise settings.
- For each element, follow the steps mentioned in (4).
Remove yourself from search engines
If you don't want to be found on Facebook, then you surely wouldn't want someone to find you through a search engine either.
- Click on the Account dropdown on the top-right. Go to Privacy Settings. OR, go to the page directly.
- Go to Applications, games and websites.
- Go to Public search. Ensure that the box is NOT checked.
Avoid playing games, will you?
Games on Facebook are an invitation to disaster, if privacy is what you seek in the first place. Many games need to access some information about you. You wouldn't want that to happen.
- Under the same Applications, games and websites settings mentioned in (7), go to Game and application activity.
- Under the options dropdown, definitely select Custom, and then 'Only Me'.
- While on the same page, go to Information accessible through your friends.
- Uncheck all that you want to hide, because all this information is available to applications and websites when your friends use them.
Avoid the tags on photos and videos
This is something that exasperates most people. All you need is a friend who will tag you to a photo. And the whole world will know. trust me, you would want to avoid this.
- Under the same Customised settings mentioned in (6), navigate to Photos and videos I'm tagged in.
- Under the options dropdown, definitely select Custom, and then 'Only Me'.
Set privacy level of photo albums
This still remains a loophole in Facebook, since the default is set to everyone. Before you start uploading pictures, you need to look at this setting.
- Go to your profile page. Click on the Photos tab.
- Just above your album covers, you will find an Albums Privacy link. Alternatively, go to this page directly.
- Select the privacy settings of each album.
- When you create a new album, remember to set the privacy setting to your desired level.
Avoid using applications
Avoid applications, unless you need one real bad. Always beware of those applications which promise you to use a Dislike button, or those that promise to show who visited your profile page. Many applications are great fun, but each time you use one, you first authorise it to access your profile information, even if you have made that available only to your friends. You're also letting the app access some information on your friends.
- Click on the Account dropdown on the top-right. Go to Application Settings. OR, go to the page directly.
- Remove all unwanted ones by clicking on the X button next to it.
- By default, Facebook shows only the recent ones. So, browse through the different categories by using the options next to Show.
- In particular pay attention to the applications that show up under 'Added to Profile', 'Authorised' and 'Granted additional permissions'.
- Each of the applications that show up would have an Edit settings link. Set them to the most private setting.
Restrict status message / post / link visibility
If you are in the habit of making extremely personal status messages that you want only your closest friends to know, then you can restrict these as well.
- Type the text into your status update box.
- Click on the little lock icon just below it. A range of privacy controls will pop up.
- You can now allow or limit access to the message.
- You can use the same procedure to restrict all posts and links.
Use the block feature liberally
This feature lets you block people from interacting with you or seeing your information on Facebook. You can also specify friends you want to ignore application invites from, and see a list of the specific applications that you've blocked from accessing your information and contacting you.
- Click on the Account dropdown on the top-right. Go to Privacy Settings. OR, go to the page directly.
- At the bottom, you will find Block lists. Click on Edit your lists.
- You can block users either by name or even by their email address.
- You can also block application or event invites from specific people.
- To block applications, you can do so only when you get an invite. But do remember to block application, instead of clicking on 'Ignore'.
Avoid "liking" too many pages
This should be self-evident. The more you like, the more you spread yourself thin. After a liking spree, do delete as many as you can.
- Go to the list of Pages. Or click the Account drop-down at the top right of any page, and then click on Pages.
- Delete all those you can.