If you’re not worried about your privacy online when interacting on social media sites, you should be. These days, it’s easier than ever before for bad guys to get ahold of your personal information. Even large corporations are having problems. For example, in December 2013, Target was targeted by hackers and lost just under 100 million credit card numbers and other identifiable information about their customers.
Seven Privacy Tips for Social Media
To help you stay safe online and protect your personal information, here’s seven specific privacy tips for when you’re on social media websites.
-
Know the Settings – The first thing you want to do is make sure you study a website’s privacy policy – including how to change the settings. Unfortunately, most websites make this very difficult to do. The more information you share with Facebook and others, the more money they can make off of you.
-
Watch for Changes – Privacy policy changes may or may not be announced, so you want to make sure you keep your eyes open for changes that occur. Hopefully in the future legislation will be passed to make it more difficult for companies to make wide changing changes without a lot of notification and options for users.
-
Sign-Out – While this can be a pain, make sure you log out of your social media accounts when you’re not using them. This is one of the best ways to make sure Facebook or Google isn’t tracking your every move online.
-
No Phone App – Try NOT to install the Facebook or Twitter app. Or, if you do install it to use occasionally, make sure you log-out whenever you’re not actively using it. While using the Facebook app may seem convenient, you’re giving them quite a bit of information that they’re going to sell to the highest bidder.
-
Use a Device Password – Make sure you set up your smartphone so that it requires you to enter a password to unlock it and use it. Unfortunately, not a lot of people take the time to do this, which is a big obstacle to privacy.
-
Use Encryption – Whenever possible, make sure you’re using encryption. Most operating systems have software that will encrypt and protect your sensitive data.
-
Unfriend Strangers – While getting your friend count to some crazy number might sound like fun, you should try to NOT friend anyone who you don’t know in real life.
Following the advice and tips above will help make sure you maintain your privacy when you’re using social media websites. Do you have your own method of staying safe on social media websites? Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you do to maintain your online privacy.
Written by: Shorna stiksal likes smartresumewizard because it’s so easy to use. She helps her company with reputation management and has been paid very well for her assistance.
