Is Google invading our privacy?
For a while now Google have been incorporating data from social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter into their search results. Due to the nature of social network sites, much of the data stored within individual accounts is very personal, but just how many of us know what our privacy settings are on our accounts, and are unaware that our personal details are being shared throughout the wider internet community.
All of the popular social media websites are vague as to their default privacy settings and users who do not check their account settings when they create their accounts will be in for a surprise. By default, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social sites will display all your information publicly (such as Facebook updates/photos, LinkedIn occupation etc) – information which will be picked up by Google and other search engines within a matter of minutes.
The screen shot below is from Google search results when searching for the phrase ‘Facebook Joe Blogs’
The first result from this query was a link to Joe Blogs’ Facebook page along with a list of his friends just under the title. This means that Google crawled the Facebook account and collected personal data, even opting to show some of it in the search results.
Clicking on the link took me to Joe Blogs’ Facebook search page. Without even being logged into Facebook or having Joe Blogs as a friend, I could immediately see a list of some of his friends as well as the music and TV shows he likes.
Google also uses LinkedIn data in their SERPs:
The screenshot above shows the location and position of a person in the Google SERPs. This is taken from your public profile on LinkedIn:
I have not seen an example of this from other social sites such as Twitter yet, but I think it is only a matter of time before personal details from these accounts are also included in the search results.
Privacy is a concern to millions around the globe and without their knowledge, they’re publishing personal information about themselves across a variety of websites meaning one search in Google can reveal lots of info about a person without even leaving the results page. One attempt at raising awareness in users is www.youropenbook.org which allows anybody to search across millions of public Facebook accounts without the need to log in.
If you want to make sure that the data in your social media accounts is private, then follow the instructions below:
- Log in to Facebook
- Go the ‘account settings’ drop down menu and select ‘privacy settings’
- In the ‘sharing on Facebook’ section select ‘friends only’ (this means that only people you have accepted as friends can view your profile).
Unfortunately, setting your privacy status to ‘friends only’ doesn’t stop your Facebook search settings from remaining public, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/joeblogs from displaying some personal details. To prevent this you need to follow to some steps:
- Still on the Privacy Settings page, select the link for editing your apps and websites.
- Once in here you can untick the box which enables public search.
- Next go back to the privacy settings page and under the ‘Connecting On Facebook’ heading, select ‘view settings’.
- In here you can set the level of privacy for more of your personal details.
This is visible by default. To remove this section from your public profile:
- Log in to LinkedIn
- Click your name and then settings on the top right
- Click ‘Public Profile’
- The location cannot be removed, however your position may be removed by unticking the ‘Headline’.
- You can disable your full public profile by clicking “None off”
Authors: Ahmed Bhula, Gemma Neesham
