How Facebook Sells Your Personal Information

[GrumpysWife]

Now that Facebook has gone public and is struggling to get a steady valuation, the company is looking to find new ways to make its money and prove its worth to investors.

One option Facebook is exploring is enhancing ad sales by more effective targeting of increasingly specific demographic groups, using location data from mobile devices and information culled from the site.

Rest of article:http://www.technewsdaily.com/16515-facebook-personal-information.html

[GrumpysWife]

Information thanks to Readers Digest

1. Want to know how much Facebook knows about you?

Go to Account Settings in the Home menu and click “Download a copy of your Facebook data.”

2. You may not want to share your updates and other personal information with the whole world.

But Facebook has kept the default setting as Public. It’s better for us if you share more, and we’re assuming that most of you aren’t going to bother changing your privacy settings.

3. You may not see every post from your friends, and only a fraction of your friends may see all your updates.

Facebook wants users to see posts that will keep them on the site the longest, so it moves up the posts that are the most liked, shared, and commented on.

4. If you are signed in to Facebook, we track you while you surf the Internet.

Anytime you visit a page that has a Facebook Like or Share button, we log that information.

5. If your posts are set to be Public, burglars can see your status updates and figure out when you’re not in town.

Insurance companies may also use posted information to raise a premium or deny a claim.

6. Posting big news like your engagement, the birth of a baby, or your acceptance to grad school?

Facebook will know. We target those types of announcements by using something called natural language processing, and then we make sure they stick around in your friends’ news feeds until the next time they log on.

7. It may work to your benefit for us to know a lot about you.

For instance, if you Like the Gap Facebook page because you love to shop there, you’ll appreciate it when a coupon pops up.

8. Not seeing enough posts from friends you care about—and too many from those you don’t?

Set your news feed to sort by Most Recent, rather than Top News. Then add your favorite people to your Close Friends list and unsubscribe from any friends whose updates you’re not interesting in receiving.

9. We make money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach you.

They give us demographics—the desired location, career, education level—and we put their ads on the pages of those who meet the criteria.

10. Do you really want to make sure your friends see your important news (you’re having a garage sale, for example)?

You can pay a fee, around $7 to $10 a post, to move your update to the top of their news feeds.

11. Lots of users hate Timeline, but it’s not going away anytime soon.

It’s a more effective way for people to share, it’s visually appealing, and brands love it because it gives them a better platform to market their business and show people who they are.

12. You can limit your posts to Facebook friends who live in your city, those who went to your college, or those you work with.

You can even choose to allow everyone to view a post except your boss. Click the arrow in the lower right-hand corner of the status update box, and you’ll see all the options.

13. Never leave your computer while you’re logged on to Facebook, especially if your coworkers have a sense of humor.

For a while, whenever someone at our headquarters did that, we’d write something like “I love Justin Bieber” as his or her status update. When that happened to me, I’d get e-mails asking, “Are you OK?”

[countrykaren]

Information thanks to Readers Digest

1. Want to know how much Facebook knows about you?

Go to Account Settings in the Home menu and click “Download a copy of your Facebook data.”

2. You may not want to share your updates and other personal information with the whole world.

But Facebook has kept the default setting as Public. It’s better for us if you share more, and we’re assuming that most of you aren’t going to bother changing your privacy settings.

3. You may not see every post from your friends, and only a fraction of your friends may see all your updates.

Facebook wants users to see posts that will keep them on the site the longest, so it moves up the posts that are the most liked, shared, and commented on.

4. If you are signed in to Facebook, we track you while you surf the Internet.

Anytime you visit a page that has a Facebook Like or Share button, we log that information.

5. If your posts are set to be Public, burglars can see your status updates and figure out when you’re not in town.

Insurance companies may also use posted information to raise a premium or deny a claim.

6. Posting big news like your engagement, the birth of a baby, or your acceptance to grad school?

Facebook will know. We target those types of announcements by using something called natural language processing, and then we make sure they stick around in your friends’ news feeds until the next time they log on.

7. It may work to your benefit for us to know a lot about you.

For instance, if you Like the Gap Facebook page because you love to shop there, you’ll appreciate it when a coupon pops up.

8. Not seeing enough posts from friends you care about—and too many from those you don’t?

Set your news feed to sort by Most Recent, rather than Top News. Then add your favorite people to your Close Friends list and unsubscribe from any friends whose updates you’re not interesting in receiving.

9. We make money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach you.

They give us demographics—the desired location, career, education level—and we put their ads on the pages of those who meet the criteria.

10. Do you really want to make sure your friends see your important news (you’re having a garage sale, for example)?

You can pay a fee, around $7 to $10 a post, to move your update to the top of their news feeds.

11. Lots of users hate Timeline, but it’s not going away anytime soon.

It’s a more effective way for people to share, it’s visually appealing, and brands love it because it gives them a better platform to market their business and show people who they are.

12. You can limit your posts to Facebook friends who live in your city, those who went to your college, or those you work with.

You can even choose to allow everyone to view a post except your boss. Click the arrow in the lower right-hand corner of the status update box, and you’ll see all the options.

13. Never leave your computer while you’re logged on to Facebook, especially if your coworkers have a sense of humor.

For a while, whenever someone at our headquarters did that, we’d write something like “I love Justin Bieber” as his or her status update. When that happened to me, I’d get e-mails asking, “Are you OK?”

If you deactivate your account and have deleted photos etc but not all the post you have made over a couple of years can they still post that as a public thing or not just a bit curious as i delete everything except for comments i had made ..

[GrumpysWife]

I don't know. I got a face book account so I can get pictures of my grandchildren but I use a fake name and put all the info on it wrong,,, even my birth date and age etc. Then if they decide to use my stuff it is no use to them. I never make comments on face book.