Will You Reclaim Your Facebook Privacy?

The recent launch of the Facebook open graph and their suite of social plugins many users, websites, news agencies and internet celebrities have been extremely vocal about the eroding state of user privacy within the Facebook platform.

Many of the over 400 million Facebook users have found the privacy controls to be far too complex with a vast array of options and setting to be tweaked and adjusted but leave users feeling more confused than comforted when it comes to controlling their privacy.

To help combat the confusion of the privacy controls found within Facebook a new tool was recently released that is aimed at eliminating the confusion and simplifying the process and steps required users face when attempting to lock down their Facebook profiles.

The bookmarklet tool at ReclaimPrivacy.org attempts to do exactly as it name implies and Reclaim Your Privacy. It is a simple link that you drag to your bookmarks toolbar and when you are on Facebook and logged in you click the bookmark to run it. The ReclaimPrivacy.org bookmark will then proceed to run through a series of security checks to identify any problem areas that may be present from within your account. After the tests are completed you will see the results and will be given advice and links to how to change the settings to be something more locked down and less private is you so choose to.

ReclaimPrivacy.org states that they are an:

independent and open tool for scanning your Facebook privacy settings. The source code and its development will always remain open and transparent.

And their privacy policy is extremely simple consisting of only two lines:

• we never see your Facebook data
• we never share your personal information

Although in theory this sounds like the answer to the question of “How do I go about securing my Facebook privacy settings?” I wonder how many users will trust a new and not completely tested tool with cleaning up their Facebook settings.

Has Facebook become so untrustworthy in their users eyes that users will jump at the chance to use any tool or website that may help them clean their privacy settings regardless of the age of the site?

Have you used the bookmark from ReclaimPrivacy.org? Did it work for you? Did you find any surprising or unusual settings that you were unaware of or thought you had closed? Do you trust a relatively new tool like ReclaimPrivacy.org with cleaning up your privacy more than the already established Facebook?

Let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.