Introduction
Facebook makes it easier to interact with friends, family, and colleagues. Moreover, Facebook makes it easier to connect to causes, share photos, potentially amplify business, and more. Because of these advantages, almost 900 million users, 150 million being from America, use the site, and the amount of subscribers is increasing every day. To conduct their service, the company continuously collects enormous amounts of personal and non-personal information then distributes it throughout Facebook and Facebook affiliated sites. This is great because it helps individuals in their searching process, creates exposure to ads for products and services that individuals actually want to purchase, allows for people to remain connected and in the know, etc. However, this paper is going to delve deeper into what Facebook’s privacy and security policies include, what kind of user information is being collected, and how it is being used

Formally known Privacy Policy:
Revised on September 23rd, 2011 and again on March 15th, 2012, the privacy policy is now referred to as the Data Use Policy which supposedly makes it easier for users to understand the terms and condition. Moreover, Facebook is constantly updating the new Data Use Policy with the last update being on May 11th, 2012. The last updates were in reference to the Privacy section of the policy where it better explains “how it uses technologies such as cookies to deliver ads” and how Facebook has “given itself more leeway on how long it keeps information it collects”. What the policy is saying is Facebook and other companies Facebook sells personal user information to will use any technology available to advertise and that Facebook will use personal user information until it is no longer relevant or needed. Moreover, what the change in the policy is also conveying is in some point in the near future, Facebook will be utilizing and harvesting the user’s public information (everything a user writes, purchases, and other activities on the internet) regardless if the user is logged into Facebook or not.

Security of the Account:
Facebook gives some control to its users allowing them to configure their security settings as they see fit. With the latest update being to the browser security where Facebook allows utilization of the encrypted HTTPS protocol which further ensures a secure connection, users can secure login notifications, login approvals, application passwords, recognized user devices, and active sessions. Moreover, users are able to edit their security settings at any point in time. However, there is more to Facebook security than personal user settings. On April 25th, 2012, Facebook released a report indicating they are increasing the level of system security by partnering with anti-virus companies such as Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Symantec. In the near future, Facebook will incorporate the “malicious URL databases from these security software companies into its URL blacklist systems” and offer “a new AV (Anti-Virus) Marketplace for Facebook users “where users can download anti-virus software from any of the partnering companies free of charge.

Strength of These Policies:
The strength of the privacy policy is controversial because it is strong for Facebook’s business but weak for the end users. This is because over the past eight years, Facebook has modified, updated, and adjusted user policy to benefit the company. What started out as having relatively high user control quickly spiraled to very limited user control in terms of personal user information. However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the security for Facebook over the years has increased and with their new anti-virus partnerships, Facebook security is strong for both the company and the users.

What Information is Facebook Taking from you?
There has been long lasting debates and tremendous controversy over what information is being harvested from Facebook. Some examples of information collected include:

and there has been continuous misunderstandings in regards to Facebook’s garnering of personal user information. In fact, one of the reasons why there was a recent revision in what is now to be called the Data Use Policy is due to the Irish Data Protection Committee who determined Facebook’s wording about their data collecting practices in 2011 were too confusing. Moreover, a big reason why Facebook needed to explain their intentions with tracking cookies is because of a nationwide class action lawsuit that was filed on February 29, 2012. Although Facebook has been accused of this violation before, the lawsuit indicates that Facebook disregarded their own privacy policy by track cookies after a user has logged out which violates the Federal Wiretap act. Nonetheless, there are two main reasons why the information being collected from Facebook is vast to say the least. One reason is because advertisers want to know what you like; who your friends are, and what they like, and those advertisers pay lots of money to get this information from Facebook so they can better understand their perspective target markets. The second main reason is because the majority of the income Facebook makes is through advertising and the way to appeal to advertisers is to have a continuous feed of personal information that advertisers can use to their advantage.

Who wants the information:
Aside from the obvious that advertisers want Facebook user information to better market their products and services, there are other individuals that want user information. For example, employers have been recently asking for their applicant’s passwords to their Facebook accounts so they can get a better understanding of who the applicant is. There has been much controversy over this issue and currently there is a bill called the “Social Networking Online Protection Act”, that if passed, “violators would be subject to a $10,000 fine”. This bill is not just intended for business employers, but for schools and universities as well.

How does Facebook Use Your Information:
For starters, all of the material that users upload onto Facebook can be used by the company at their leisure, even if a user decides to delete the account. Moreover, when a new user decides to subscribe to Facebook, as indicated in the policy agreement, that person grants Facebook a license to a plethora of conveniences including the ability to store, retain, display, advertise, distribute, etc. Moreover, any personal user information posted on or in connection with the Facebook service is subject only to the user’s privacy settings. That being said, Facebook keeps the user information until an advertiser requests to reach a certain target market. For example, if someone lives in Westchester NY, Facebook knows. There might be a realtor company holding an open house who wishes to advertise to those people. If the realtor company pays to advertise to people in Westchester NY, then those ads would appear instantly for a given amount of time. Moreover, Facebook considers user information as if it is fair game and theirs to benefit from, and it is because those are the terms the user agrees to in the beginning. The fact of the matter is Facebook is free. However, people use Facebook “with the understanding that they're going to monetize the system in some way by advertisements” and that Facebook is not going to give information away for free.

Conclusion:
From their initial launch in 2004, Facebook’s policies have undergone incredible changes. In the beginning, Facebook was a simple social media website built for communication. Moreover, there was no need to go into detail about the privacy and security of the site. Then, when Facebook realized they could make a lot of money from user information, the policies and the social network itself transformed to where most user information is made public by default giving less control to users and their information. Today, Facebook has created an addictive platform where users are obligated to make information public so that Facebook can sell your information and their partners can gain from it. All the changes in the Facebook privacy policy over the past eight years have been for maximizing profits gained from advertising and business partners; ultimately reducing the users' options to govern their own information.