In a fitting follow-up to yesterday’s post about unchecked privacy I thought I would share a tool that makes keeping track of evolving privacy settings from Facebook “privacy is dead” point of view.

As Facebook wrestles with how far to change its policies regarding public and private a number of organizations have seized the opportunity to provide open and independent information about the best ways to evolve with Facebook. ReclaimPrivacy.org has even created a tool that scans your privacy settings and warns you about settings that might be unexpectedly public – most notably the new Instant Personalization feature that everyone was opted into by default. (The source code for the bookmarklet is open and available, which should provide some assurance that the app itself is not somehow compromising your privacy.)

Here’s how to scan your privacy settings

1. Drag this link to your web browser bookmarks bar: Scan for Privacy
2. Log in to facebook.com and then click that bookmark
3. You will see a series of privacy scans that inspect your privacy settings and warn you about settings that might be unexpectedly public.