Facebook is continually changing its privacy settings, making it virtually impossible for users to know what they are sharing and with who.  In the last couple of weeks, Facebook added another feature to the standard fare allowing people to connect even more with outside websites, this also means that the outside websites were getting more of your information.  I am all about sharing and being open and transparent, but I am becoming more and more concerned about about what I am sharing that I don't know I am sharing.  There have been a few great blog posts over the last few weeks about what we can do to ensure more of our privacy on Facebook, or listing reasons we should leave Facebook or reasons we should stay on Facebook.  I am not jumping ship, but I am looking at my privacy settings on Facebook, disconnecting some of the applications I no longer use or had no idea I signed up for.  I'm considering what I "like". 

Please don't see this post as trying to convince you to leave Facebook or never sign up.  I am a huge fan of what Facebook allows a person to do, I'm just not sure I like all that they are doing with it at the moment. I love that I can connect with family and friends I rarely talk to just by logging in.  I would probably have no idea that one of my cousins and her husband raise chickens if it weren't for Facebook.  I would have never seen two my cousins in a tux, unless it was their wedding day.  I get to wish friends and family a Happy Birthday even when I forget that it is their birthday because Facebook reminds me.  With all that being said be mindful of what you are sharing and who the websites are you sharing your information with.

This week is Choose Privacy Week and their website says it best, "I want the power to decide who shares what."  They have also created an imformative and interesting video.  It is more then 20 minutes long, but well worth the time.  If nothing else it will make you think.

Choose Privacy Week Video from 20K Films on Vimeo.

Little Brother, a teen fiction book, addresses privacy and the government watching after a terrorist attack by Cory Doctorow, who is also featured in the Choose Privacy Week video.  Little Brother takes government survaillence to the next level, but the scariest part about it is that it doesn't seem so far fetched.  Check it out and don't let the tech jargon get you down.  The book will make you think or at least it made me think.

More links to look at:

• Facebook: 5 Privacy Setting You Must Tweak Now
• How to Restore Your Privacy on Facebook
• New App Helps Keep Facebook's Hands Off Your Data