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2 Applications to Help You Reset Your Privacy Settings

If you thought you had your privacy settings squared away on Facebook, think again. Throw the settings that you approved a year ago out the window. They mean something totally different now.

Facebook has, once again, made some modifications that make a huge chunk of profile content public by default.

The reason for this change?

Simple. Facebook wants to expand its brand across the the Web. By doing this, Facebook brings users' Facebook friends lists to external sites and shows them their friends' activity. A news site, for example, could show which stories your Facebook contacts have been recommending and commenting on.

While you may be okay with this, others are not.

Thankfully there are two new applications just for people who want their privacy back. These are tools that make it easy to understand and fix Facebook privacy settings.

The first is called SaveFace.

A firewall and spam filter company called Untangle launched SaveFace this week. It takes the form of a browser bookmark utility and sets as many Facebook profile elements as it can--contact information, friend lists and connections, wall posts--to "friends only."

The second application is called ReclaimPrivacy. Just as its name suggests, this tool allows users to take back their Facebook privacy by scanning account settings and flagging elements that may be unexpectedly public. And, like SaveFace, ReclaimPrivacy can restore settings.

Both applications are easy to use, take seconds to run, and will give you some peace of mind.

Remember, though, as with any social networking site... always BE MINDFUL of your profile content. Facebook mistakes can doom your career, even with privacy settings intact.