6 Ways to Maximize Your Facebook Privacy

With over 400 million active users around the world, Facebook has become for many people the go-to place for managing both personal and work connections. But the site's tendency to change their privacy policies every few months makes it difficult to ensure that information you want to keep private (or semi-private, at least) isn't shared with everyone who has an Internet connection.

Facebook recently rolled out new privacy controls that are easier to manage, but their recommended settings certainly expose more information than what you may have expected when you first joined the site. Here is a basic walk-through of Facebook's latest incarnation of privacy controls to help you get your old privacy back.

1. Know Your Privacy Settings Page

Controlling your privacy starts here. You can access the privacy control hub by clicking on "Account" at the top right and selecting "Privacy Settings."

You'll see that your privacy settings are divided into four sections: basic directory, sharing, applications and websites, and block lists. Click on the corresponding link for each section to go to the page where you can view and edit your settings. We'll start with the basic directory.

2. Restrict Your Basic Directory

In the basic directory section, you can control the information that others use to identify you. You can set each piece of information to be visible to "Everyone" (that is, everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook uers), "Friends," "Friends and Networks," or "Friends Only" by clicking on the drop-down menus to the right and selecting the visibility level you prefer.

Facebook recommends setting your entire directory to "Everyone" so that people can find you more easily, but it probably isn't necessary for most users. Here are Lifehacker's recommendations, which I have adopted as well:

• Search or me on Facebook -- Everyone
• Send me friend requests -- Everyone
• Send me messages -- Friends of Friends
• See my friend list -- Friends of Friends
• See my education and work -- Friends and Networks
• See my current city and hometown -- Friends Only
• See my interests and other Pages -- Friends Only

Some categories will allow you to customize your privacy level even more. When you select "Customize" from the drop-down menu, the Custom Privacy box will appear. Here, you can choose to make your information visible to -- or hidden from -- specific people, network, or lists.

When you're done with the basic directory section, click on the "Back to Privacy" button on the top left of the page to go back to the privacy control hub.

3. Avoid Oversharing

Next, let's look at sharing. This section covers your status updates, real world contact information, relationships, photos, videos and the like. Right on the main privacy settings page, there's a chart that summarizes your current settings for sharing. Select "Friends Only" and click "Apply These Settings."

You can also click on the "Customize settings" link, located below the chart, to get a line-item list of what gets shared with whom. This is a little more complicated than selecting friends only across the board, but it's handy if you want to manage both your personal and work networks on Facebook.

4. Block Spammy Applications

While there are many useful Facebook apps, not all of them are your friends.  Don't let spammy applications gain access to your information. Click "Edit your settings" right under the "Applications and Websites" heading. At the top of the next page, you'll see small icons representing the applications, games and websites that you're currently using. Click the "Remove" link located below the icons.

A box will appear with a list of your applications. Select the ones you want to remove, and click the "Remove" button.

Continuing down the page, you'll see a privacy setting button in the "Game and application activity" category. Select "Friends Only" from the drop-down menu.

For the next three categories, click on the "Edit Settings" button and uncheck everything.

5. Manage Your Block List

As in real life, there are probably people that you just don't want to deal with on Facebook. This is where your block list comes in. On the main privacy settings page and under the "Block List" heading, click "Edit your lists." You'll be taken to a page where you can enter the name or e-mail of the person you want to block. You can also block application invites from specific friends.

Another way to block someone is to go to their profile page and click the "Report/Block this Person" link at the bottom of the left sidebar.

6. Not All Friends Are Equal (Share-Wise)

A tool that I've found to be particularly helpful is Facebook's friends list feature, which I use to filter information I share with different categories of "friends" -- family, friends, co-workers and classmates.

This video shows how to create a list in Facebook:

You can use friends lists in many areas of Facebook, including your status updates. Just click on the image of the lock located below the text box, and select "Customize."

The Custom Privacy box will appear (you've seen it before). Select "Specific People..." under "Make this visible to" and enter the name of a list you created. Click "Save Setting." When you share that particular update, it'll be visible only to the people on the list you specified.

Enter a list in the "Hide this from" section of the Custom Privacy box, and your status update will be invisible to those on the list.

[Headline Photo Credit: iStock]

These tweaks should keep your privacy relatively secure -- at least until Facebook makes another round of changes. How do you feel about Facebook privacy settings?  Do you examine them often?

See more from Wise Bread:

6 Smartphone Apps for Expecting Parents

Get Your Boss To Let You Work from Home

6 Top iPhone Apps for Voracious Readers

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Amy Lu is a Contributing Editor at Wise Bread, a community dedicated to helping folks live large on a small budget. She is a veteran teleworker who enjoys the freedom of working from home.