The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings
5. Application Settings
The final — and perhaps most confusing — group of settings, the Application Settings, has been divided up into two parts.
Part A: Your Friends’ Applications
Return to the Settings —> Privacy Settings page. Click the “Applications” page. You can read all the information you see here, but here is a summary:
- Whatever you have made public in your public search listing is fair game to any application;
- your applications can by default access any information on your profile, including photos, friends, and more (except your email address), but you can remove this ability;
- your friends’ applications can see about you whatever your friends can see (however, those settings are additionally confirmed on this page)
- if an application says that it’s only for a certain group of people (such as teenagers, Americans, etc.) and you authorize that application, it’s going to know that you are a part of that group (duh).
With that in mind, select the Settings tab. The first group of checkboxes allows you to block friends’ applications from seeing certain information about you. You have already chosen what your friends can see, but these customizations further restrict your friends’ applications. I like to remove the ability for my friends’ applications to see my personal information, location, and photos. Save Changes.
Unless you’re using Facebook Connect to access other websites, you won’t need to worry about the rest of this page. Additionally, blocked applications and ignored invites are listed on this page, but you won’t modify those settings on this page. Instead, that’s done on a case-by-case basis.
Part B: Your Applications
Next you must modify the settings for your own applications. Go to the Settings —> Application settings to do this. On this page you’ll be forced to modify the preferences for each application individually.
Click “Edit Settings,” and a small window with several tabs (although not every application will have the same tabs) will appear. In the “Wall” tab, you allow or disallow your applications to publish stories to your Wall or your friends’ News Feeds. I have selected “Prompt me before publishing any stories…” for every application so that I receive the option to publish certain stories but do not flood my friends with information about the games I play or groups I join.
In the “Profile” tab, you may choose to add or remove a profile box for the selected application. Additionally, you can select certain friends or friend lists to permit to see or to block from seeing any given profile box.
The “Bookmark” tab simply serves your convenience by permitting you to bookmark an application for quick access in several locations throughout your profile and account.
Finally, the “Additional Permissions” tab designates when Facebook can e-mail you regarding the selected application.
You’ll have to modify the settings for each of these applications individually. To do this, you must make sure to use the “Show” drop-down to see all of your applications. Unfortunately, the drop-down doesn’t list allow you to view all the applications at once, and as a result you’ll have to show each of the different categories.
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That’s it! If you made it through all that, you are now a Facebook privacy expert. Enjoy your new Facebook freedom, and be sure to leave comments with any questions or things I might have missed. Thanks!
Edit: I neglected to cite an article from AllFacebook which was the inspiration for my inclusion of the friend lists feature in this guide. Consider it cited:
10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know