10 Ways to Protect Your Privacy while Entering Facebook Sweepstakes

1. Privacy Settings for Your Facebook Profile: Settings that Are Always Public

Your Facebook profile is designed to help people tell at a glance whether you're someone they know. There's some information that you can't adjust - it's always available. Other information, you can control.

According to Facebook's Privacy explanation, "your name, profile picture, gender, networks and username are available to everyone because this info is essential to helping you connect with your friends and family."

If you want to obscure any of this information, you can choose what you share with Facebook. For example, you can select a profile picture that doesn't show your face clearly. Instead, pick a picture of a pet, a blurred-out photograph, a landscape, or an angle that makes it difficult to identify who you are.

2. Your Facebook Profile: Privacy Settings that You Can Adjust

Faceboook makes some profile features available to everyone by default, including "hometown, activities and experiences," but you can adjust the privacy levels if you want to.

To adjust the privacy levels on your profile information, follow these instructions:

1. Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Under "Basic Directory Information" click on "View settings."
3. Adjust the privacy levels for "See your education and work," "See your current city and hometown," and "See your likes, activities and other connections."

3. Who Can Find You: Facebook Privacy Settings for Search

Do you want to let people find you on Facebook by searching for your name. If you allow this option, you'll make it easier for old friends or family members to find you; but if you want to keep your Facebook account private, you'll want to limit this option.

To limit who can find you through searches on Facebook's website, follow these instructions:

1. Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Under "Basic Directory Information" click on "View settings."
3. Adjust the privacy levels for "Search for you on Facebook."

To prevent people from being able to search for you on the internet using websites like Google or Bing:

1. Under "Apps and Websites," click on the "Edit your settings" link.
2. Under "Public search" click on the "Edit Settings" button.
3. Uncheck the box next to "Enable public search."
4. Confirm that you really want to remove yourself from search.

4. Who Can Be Your Friend: Control Who Can Send You Friend Requests

On Facebook, you can control who is able to send you requests to be your friend. If you want to limit requests from strangers, you can set this option to "friends of friends" or one of the more restrictive privacy level settings.

To restrict who can send you Facebook friend requests:

1. Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Under "Basic Directory Information" click on "View settings."
3. Adjust the privacy levels for "Send you friend requests."

5. Your Photographs: Privacy Settings for Facebook Albums

It can be a lot of fun to share photographs with loved ones far and wide, but you don't necessarily want strangers seeing pictures of your kids, your home, or the places you've visited. And of course, there have been plenty of situations where pictures your friends find funny have caused trouble at work or school.

To limit who can see the photos you post:

1. Go to the Facebook Photos Privacy Page.
2. Select the privacy levels you want for each album or type of photograph.

6. Control Who Reads What You Write: Facebook Privacy Settings for Updates

When you make a post on Facebook, you're sharing personal information that you might not want the whole world to know. Facebook gives you two ways of controlling who can read your updates: a general setting that works by default, and a post-by-post setting that lets you show some posts to everyone and other updates to a select few.

To set your default privacy levels for your updates:

1. Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Under "Sharing on Facebook" click on the "Customize settings" link.
3. Select the privacy level you want under "Posts by me."

To set your privacy settings on individual posts:

1. Click on the Privacy Lock icon underneath the status box.
2. Select the privacy level you want from the drop-down box.

7. Being Tagged in Photos: Privacy Settings for Tags in Facebook Photos

Facebook has a feature where friends can identify you in pictures that they take. While this makes it easy to tell when a photo that features you has been posted, it can also expose you to friends, coworkers, and strangers. Luckily, you can control who can see this information.

To control who can see when you've been tagged in a photo:

1. Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Under "Sharing on Facebook" click on the "Customize settings" link.
3. Look for "Photos and videos I'm tagged in" under "Things others share."
4. Select the privacy level you want from the drop-down box on the right-hand side of the screen.

8. Application Privacy Settings: Limit Information Used by Apps

This is one issue that's very important for anyone who enters Facebook sweepstakes, since so many sweepstakes use apps. By default, apps can only see information that's available to everyone. To gain access to more information, they have to ask your permission.

You can remove permission from apps you no longer use, limit the information available to apps you still use, and block apps from requesting permission to access your account.

Read my article, How to Remove or Restrict Facebook Apps for detailed instructions.

To block an application from requesting information:

1. Go to the application's Facebook page.
2. Click on the "Block App" link on the left-hand side of the page.

1. >Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Look for "Block Lists" at the bottom of the page, and click on the "Edit your lists" link

9. Your Contact Information: Privacy for Your Email, IMs, More

Facebook makes it easy for your friends to be able to contact you by allowing you to input your personal information, like your email addresses, telephone numbers, IM usernames, and home address. Clearly, this is information that you don't want to give to all and sundry.

This information is not required, so you can always skip entering it altogether. But if you'd like to let some friends contact you while making sure your information is secure from strangers, you can restrict access.

To limit who can access your contact information:

1. Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Under "Sharing on Facebook" click on the "Customize settings" link.
3. At the bottom of the page, you'll see various settings for "Contact information." You can adjust your privacy levels for each one individually.

10. Check Ins: Privacy Settings to Limit Who Can See Where You Are

Facebook allows you to "check in" to tell your friends where you are at any given time. You can announce if you're visiting a restaurant, standing atop the Eiffel Tower, or stopping by a popular hangout. But it can be dangerous to tell the whole world where you are at any given time. And even worse, by default, your friends can check you in without permission.

There are three steps you'll need to take to restrict the "check in" feature, or turn it off altogether:

1. Go to Facebook.com and click on the "Account" link at the upper right-hand side of the page. Select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list.
2. Under "Sharing on Facebook" click on the "Customize settings" link.
3. Set your desired privacy level under "Places I check in to" (to turn off this feature, set it to "Only Me."
4. Under "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in" (which is visible to people located near you, whether you're friends or not), uncheck the box if you do not want to be included.
5. Under "Friends can check me in to Places," click on "Edit Settings" and then select the "Disabled" option.

11. Conclusion

This guide to Facebook privacy settings will help you ensure that only people you trust see your personal information. But remember, if you are primarily using Facebook to enter sweepstakes, the best way to protect your personal information is to keep it off Facebook altogether. There is very little information aside from your name that you need to share on Facebook, and if you're careful about what you post, you don't have to worry about your privacy being violated.