Oh S.N.A.P. My Facebook Really Isn't Private

Privacy is a hot button issue with Facebook these days, as people are getting more and more worried about random people stalking them online. While Facebook does have a built in security system, many people do not know about or take advantage of these settings.

There are many people though who know about the security system, but just don't really understand what they are blocking out. With tags like "friends of friends," "friends," and "friends of friends of friends" (I don't think that one actually exists), who knows who can see what.

The folks over at S.N.A.P. (Social Network Analyzer for Privacy) have put out an app that tries to make the complicated security framework of Facebook a bit simpler. Once you sign in (and allow S.N.A.P. to access all of your data), your page is instantly analyzed and a letter grade is returned to you.

The letter grade is based on how open the different items are on Facebook. Like most people, the app prefers that everything on your page is kept to yourself or to your friends, and it'll seriously ding you if you start using friends of "friends" or "everyone." Fortunately, the app will take you directly to the area that is the culprit for your lower grade so you can make a decision yourself. I personally don't care if anyone sees my past profile pictures, but if I had a daughter, I would certainly have that shut down. Scratch that, I'd have her whole page shut down, but that's another story altogether.

A neat feature for concerned users is the keyword search that scans your page for any word that you don't want to be associated with. I did a quick search on Blackberry (those goons) and I was thankfully in the clear. Whew.

If you are concerned about how safe your Facebook account is, pick up S.N.A.P. for free in the App Store.

*Quick Cheat - If you don't allow S.N.A.P. to access your profile and pages, you will get an A+ on everything because the app will think that you have everything set to just be viewed by you. I'm so trained to hit "do not allow" that once I got into the app the first time, I thought it was broken.