Facebook updates its privacy policy, once again

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December 9th, 2009 - Posted by Caitlin

Facebook unveiled its latest privacy policy today, as well as changes to the privacy settings. Facebook's privacy policy and settings must continuously evolve with the addition of new features that involve third-party applications and websites. But this time, Facebook has also discontinued its regional networks, and instead, the new default privacy settings are set to broadcast your data to "Everyone." If you had previously tweaked your settings to allow for more privacy, those settings should be maintained, but if you had been allowing certain data to be seen by everyone within your regional network, it will now be visible to everyone on the Internet.

If you have never checked out the "Privacy Settings" section on Facebook, now is the time. If you do choose to make your entire Facebook profile visible to everyone, including search engines, it should be a conscious choice, and you should always be aware of the possible ramifications of any information that you choose to share. But if you use Facebook with the assumption that you are sharing information with a select group of friends, you will almost certainly want to change the default privacy settings to restrict who can see what you post.

Making too much personal information easily available puts you at an increased risk for identity theft. Identity thieves can use seemingly harmless revalations to guess your passwords, or the answers to your password reminder questions. So be smart, be careful, and, for an additional layer of defense, consider investing in identity theft protection.