The Facebook status update box has a "lock" icon next to it, suggesting security, and the words "Friends only". Who will have access to your update? Apart from your friends, that is?
As far as I can tell, this would be:
- Facebook itself.
- The operators of some of the apps on your page. A lot of apps "require" this access, even apps that really have no business looking at your status — many quizzes, for instance, do this.
- The operators of some of the apps on your friends' pages. Again, many quizzes delight in asking for this information. There is a relatively obscure setting to disable this, four or five clicks from the home page.[1]
Each of these entities has a separate privacy policy, and other terms and conditions which may affect how useful the privacy policy is. Most of them (including Facebook) reserve the right to change the terms and conditions unilaterally, some purport to limit your recourse through the courts (eg Zynga's "waiver" of equitable relief). Even just collecting the privacy policies of all your friends' apps would be an interesting exercise (especially since there's no obvious way to even list them).
Yet all this is summarised by a lock icon and the words "Friends only".
[1] Account, Privacy, Apps and Websites, Information accessible through your friends, My status updates
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