What Facebook Publicly
Publishes About You
With Facebook's new Open Graph
API causing such a stir , many
people are questioning what
Facebook is publishing to the
public. Developer Ka-Ping Yee
has created a simple tool shows
you what everyone else can see.
To check your profile for public
information, all you need to do
is load up the tool and type in
your Facebook ID--this is the
name right after facebook.com/
on your profile page (if you
haven't set a username, it's the
string of numbers at the end of
the URL). Alternatively, you can
search for your name or email
address.
The tool will then load all your
profile information. All your
information outside the
"metadata" box is public (for
example, in the above picture,
that means that everyone can
see my "website" links). To see
if a particular section within
the metadata box (such as
activities, favorite movies, etc.)
is visible to the public click on
its link--if it comes up empty,
it's not viewable to the public.
Note, though, that if it's not
public, it may very well be
viewable to friends of your
friends, which is still pretty
darn public--so check your
privacy settings to be sure it's
what you want. If clicking on a
section comes up with something
like the picture below, then
everything listed is available for
the public--and any web site
that uses the Open Graph API--
to see.
Facebook does already have a
built-in tool within privacy
settings to do this, but it's nice
to have an external tool to
double-check, and with the new
Open Graph being a bit
confusing for some people, it
should help you sleep at night
knowing exactly what is and is
not public. If you find that
your profile is much more public
than you thought, make sure
you know how to restore your
privacy .
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