It seems like regardless of what Facebook does, there is always a discussion about privacy.  Even though the purpose of Facebook is to connect with others and share information, most people don’t want to share too much or to share their information with the wrong people (or perhaps people they don’t know).

Once you have your Facebook account set up, the first thing you’ll want to do is make sure your account’s privacy settings match your expectations and your goals for having the account in the first place.  You’ll want to think about who are the “right” people to be sharing your information with – they are likely to be anyone you want to find information about you or your business.

• Have you established your privacy settings? After you sign up for a new account, go to your new account page and click the item that’s entitled “Control what information you share.”  This will provide you with information about Facebook’s privacy settings.

• Click “Account” in the blue menu bar in the right top corner of the page.

• Click “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu that appears.

• Find the link to “Customize settings” and click it.

• Go to the bottom of the “Things I share” section and find the entry that says “Include me in the ‘People Here Now’ after I check in”.

• Unclick the box that says “Enable.”

• Review each of the subcategories in the “Things I share” section.

• For each subcategory, decide who you want to be able to see that information, keeping in mind how sharing each type of information will affect your business.  The choices are “Everyone,” “Friends of Friends,” “Friends Only,” and “Customize.”

• Select “Everyone” if you want to share with the larges possible audience.

• Select “Friends of Friends” if you want to share with the extended network of people that have some connection to you.

• Select “Friends Only” if you want the information to be accessible only to people that you actually know and interact with directly.

• Select “Customize” if you want to be able to identify specific individuals or groups of individuals that will be able to see the specified information.

• Make sure these items of information are set to a privacy setting other than “Everyone”:

• Your birth date (or birth year, at the very least).
• Photos you are “tagged” in.
• Your home address.
• Your home phone number.
• Your mobile phone number.
• Click “Edit album privacy” to limit who can see the photos that you post to your account.

• If you set up any new Facebook Groups, decide between the three available privacy settings:  “Closed,” “Secret,” and “Open.”

• Select “Open” if you want the Group, its membership list and any group content to be accessible to anyone.

• Select “Closed” (this is the default setting”) if you want the existence of the group and its list of members to be public, but content to be accessible only to members.

• Select “Secret” if you don’t even want the existence of the group, or a listing of its members, to be public.

• Review your privacy settings whenever Facebook changes its policy or rolls out a new site-wide feature.

• Don’t automatically accept the default Facebook privacy settings.