Now that Facebook has changed its privacy and security settings, you need to make sure you’ve got all your hatches battened… if you catch our driftwood.. yarr.

Head over to the privacy settings under the settings tab in the upper right corner.

First, you need to make sure your profile information is secure. A good starting place is to lock your profile so that your accepted Facebook friends can see your information. If you’re paranoid, you can certainly set each specific piece of your life so that no one can see it. But then you need to ask yourself what you’re doing on Facebook in the first place?

Next, you must control who can contact you. Head back to the privacy section under the settings tab. Again, it’s a good idea to set this to only friends. If you don’t want anyone to contact you, make sure to delete any email addresses, instant messenger screen names or phone numbers. We shouldn’t have to tell you this but just in case: Never ever ever ever list or publish your home address. It’s a sure-fire way find a creeper in your closet sniffing your underwear.

Finally, you need to limit who can and cannot search for you online. Facebook creates a public profile for searches in Google and other search engines. For best creeper-blocking results, you’ll want to un-check this option in the search section of your privacy settings. For additional protection, you can set Facebook’s search results to allow only friends of friends or just friends. This way, creepers won’t even know you exist!

There! Now you can frolic online without any worry of being creeped upon… or at least less creeped upon.

Tags: 2.0, Facebook, Privacy, Security

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