Taking Charge of Your Online Privacy

Kim Garcia uses her Facebook page to share hundreds of family photos. But the mother of three boys wants to control who sees those pictures.

"You can't search my profile just by name, you have to be a friend of a friend or I have to find you," said Garcia.

That way Kim Garcia can be sure strangers are not viewing her family pictures or personal information. But Kim says it's not always easy to do that.

"A couple times Facebook has tried to make the photos automatically public," said Garcia. She says you have to purposely click to change your setting to private.

Privacy experts have complained to the Federal Trade Commission about changes Facebook is making to its privacy policy. That policy would allow the popular social networking site to use "your name, profile picture, content and information in connection with commercial, sponsored or related content served or enhanced by us."  

A letter by the privacy advocates argue that Facebook does not inform users that they can use their privacy settings to limit access to personal information. 

Security research director Jeff Debrosse with Websense says consumers need to stay ahead and stay aware of constantly changing security updates on Facebook and other websites.

"We owe it to ourselves to go in and make sure that we understand what the current policies are," said Debrosse.  He said consumers don't often read the fine print associated with website agreements and privacy policies.

Kim Garcia says she will we protect her family from people she doesn't know.

"I just don't want my pictures out of my control," said Garcia.

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