New from Consumer Reports: Facebook & Your Privacy (Who Sees Your Data)

An article (available online) from the June 2012 issue of Consumer Reports reports on Facebook, its users, and privacy issues.

Title

“Facebook & Your Privacy: Who sees the data you share on the biggest social network?”

Source

Consumer Reports

From the Article

Some people are sharing too much. Our projections suggest that 4.8 million people have used Facebook to say where they planned to go on a certain day (a potential tip-off for burglars) and that 4.7 million “liked” a Facebook page about health conditions or treatments (details an insurer might use against you).

Some don’t use privacy controls. Almost 13 million users said they had never set, or didn’t know about, Facebook’s privacy tools. And 28 percent shared all, or almost all, of their wall posts with an audience wider than just their friends.

Facebook collects more data than you may imagine. For example, did you know that Facebook gets a report every time you visit a site with a Facebook “Like” button, even if you never click the button, are not a Facebook user, or are not logged in?

Filed under: Data Files, Patrons and Users, Reports