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Facebook Retroactively Makes More User Data Public

Posted by Soulskill on from the privacy-is-a-crutch dept.

mjn writes "In yet another backtrack from their privacy policy, Facebook has decided to retroactively move more information into the public, indexable part of profiles. The new profile parts made public are: a list of things users have become 'fans' of (now renamed to 'likes'), their education and work histories, and what they list under 'interests.' Apparently there is neither any opt-out nor even notice to users, despite the fact that some of this information was entered by users at a time when Facebook's privacy policy explicitly promised that it wouldn't be part of the public profile."

4 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. There is a notice in the fine print if you edit... by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Confirm the Pages that will be on your profile
    Uncheck any Page you don't want to link to. Linking to education and work Pages may also create additional Pages, such as for your major or job title. If you don't link to any Pages, these sections on your profile will be empty. By linking your profile to Pages, you will be making these connections public. [emphasis mine]

    You are about to remove this information
    If you don't link to any Pages, the following sections on your profile will be empty:
    • Work and Education
    • Current City
    • Hometown
    • Likes and Interests

    So your options are all or nothing.

  2. Why by mukund · · Score: 5, Informative

    You still use Facebook? Call me a troll, but think. Are you being intelligent if you still use Facebook after all this?

    After my last Slashdot comment, I deleted my profile. One of the sub-comments explains how to delete it instead of just disabling it.

    --
    Banu
  3. What did you expect ? by Nightjed · · Score: 3, Informative

    People need to understand once something hits the internet its out there, no privacy promise by a huge corporation (that probably owns the data once it hits its servers and gave it self the right to change policy whenever they want in the wall of text) is going to protect it.

    The Cloud sound nice and all but the hype often forgets (intentionally ?) to make the dumb user aware of the consequences and dangers of putting something in a hard drive they cannot control

  4. Re:Don't worry by makomk · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is an option in the privacy settings to turn off your publicly indexable profile. You can still be on Facebook, share info with people you want to, and just disable the ability of search engines and data miners to pull information out of a publicly available profile.

    That just stops your profile from showing up in search results. All of the publicly-available parts of your profile - name, location, pages, gender, friends list, etc - are still avaiable to every application that any friend of yours uses, and now also to approved third-party websites that they visit too. There's no way to turn this off.