Facebook and Your Privacy Settings

There seem to be some new rumors going around on Facebook again lately. I've been seeing new "disclosures" appearing on my Facebook friend's walls, so I did some quick research. As usual, Snopes is a great resource for what's true and what's false on the internet. According to Snopes:

According to TechTalk (via Snopes), "The fact is that Facebook members own the intellectual property (IP) that is uploaded to the social network, but depending on their privacy and applications settings, users grant the social network "a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License)." 

Furthermore, "While the social network does not technically own its members content, it has the right to use anything that is not protected with Facebook's privacy and applications settings. For instance, photos, videos and status updates set to public are fair game."

So, it's all about how you set your privacy settings, and not about any disclosures you put on your wall. Change your privacy settings asap.

Facebook users can prevent their profile photos from appearing in association with social ads by selecting the following options:

Settings --> Privacy Settings --> Ads (left column) --> Ads & Friends (Edit) --> Set to "No one"

It's as simple as that...no need for any long-winded disclosure (which won't work anyway).