VERY IMPORTANT POST

FOR YOUR INFORMATION!

IF YOU GOOGLE YOUR USER NAME PLUS FAT SECRET YOUR WHOLE JOURNAL COMES UP ON THE INTERNET INCLUDING YOUR PICTURE AND YOUR BIO. ALL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION AND ANYONE CAN READ IT AND SEE YOUR PICTURE.

I STUMBLED UPON THIS BY ACCIDENT YESTERDAY BUT DID NOT REALIZE THAT YOU COULD READ EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYONE. I WANTED TO LET YOU ALL KNOW.

I AM NOT SURE WHAT I AM GOING TO DO REGARDING THIS BUT I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA THAT ANYONE ANYWHERE CAN READ WHAT I WRITE.

ANY OPINIONS ON THIS?

I JUST FOUND OUT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS TO BUDDIES ONLY THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN

There's a setting in the account settings to hide your journal or only share with buddies and then Google can't see it.

Thanks Laurs I just figured that out!

Your welcome...

laurs, that does not work. I even changed mine to private. If I am logged OFF of this site then no one can access it, but if I am logged ON then all my information is visible. Try it. As an experiment, cindyshine was logged on so I signed off of this site and went to google and googled her at FS and there she was, her photo, all her FS information, I even went in and left a message on her journal through google. Then I signed back in on FS and went to her journal and there was my post and I had not even been on FS only google. So much for privacy.

That is awful. I sent them an email and I will post their response below:

Hi Catherine,



Many thanks for contacting us.



If you are not sharing your weight, journal and calendar with everyone (in the settings), then the search engines (including Google) are unable to crawl, index and display your journal in search results. Your profile is accessible to the search engines and you can change your profile image at any time.



If you would like us to change your member name, we’d be delighted to do so, please let us know and provided the member name is unique we will attend to it as soon as possible.



We appreciate your patience and wish you well.



The FatSecret team

wecandothis you are right. It can still be accessed if you are online on google but not on yahoo! What to do about it?

I took my photo off. I am signed in right now and if I put my user name and fatsecret in the search box I come up with all my information, I can even post on journals. If I am signed off and do a google search I come up as a FS member but nothing is visible. I would have to sign in. I did an experiment with cindyshine, check her Oct. 20 journal, as I tell her about it. so what they say is not true her at FS about privacy.

I don't know whether this is a universal problem but I'm in the UK and if I put my user name and fatsecret in the search box I don't get anything up at all concerning me or my journals.

If I am signed into fatsecret and I google my username and fatsecret indeed ... there are all of my journals. If I am not signed in then when I click on what comes up on google it brings me to a sign in page. I guess the trick is to not stay signed in for very long. Indeed ... I am not pleased with this information ... perhap I shall need to say less ... about my life.

I also just did this...If I was signed into FS then all my info came up for anyone to see even though all of my journals, weight and so on are now and have always been set to private. This is ridiculous, I will be canceling my account today. What a scam!!

Welcome to the internets. You must be new here.

A few pointers:
If you are embarrassed about using this site, then don't use it.

If you don't want people to know about you, don't post about yourself.

Google will find you. No. Matter. What.

You can set your account to "private" or "buddies only".

I call dibs on Poet-In-Motion's TV when she leaves for vacation.

Posting your real name, address, and credit card number is usually a bad idea. But I won't protest if you send these things directly to my inbox.

No one is forcing you to post personal pictures and info. You did this.

Transparency is kind of the point of this website. It makes you accountable.

Yes, Google can find anyone.

I think if you are finding yourself, and the comp recognizes you IF YOU ARE LOGGED ON you WILL see your profile.

If you are not logged on to fs, or say someone else looks for you and YOUR ACCOUNT is PRIVATE or BUDDIES ONLY...
You will be able to find the profile by username. It just won't let you see the profile. And they won't until you allow them
JUST pic and profile. I don't think the weight though.

Now, they CAN see comments others have written about you. So if you write something private and someone comments on it, Im sure the 'lurker' can figure out SOME secrets... make sense?? lol
So as always, yes, watch what you say or do.

There is another feature, I have clicked off. You can find friends by email. If you know someones email adress you can search the system by it. You can do that at most sites... so unclick that if you want to be less available.

I really don't 'think' it has to do w/ you being logged on or off to allow other viewers to see your profile. Your own computer was just recognizing you.

So I hope FS will clear something up, chattycathy you emailes them??

Also, having a different username that NO one would know helps. If thats the only search they have, using your full name might not link you to fs, if you don't use that!!
NO worries people... I HOPE!!!

LMAO, Divided! My thoughts exactly. People, if you are worried about this, take your pictures off your profile and stop posting personal details. And log off after each use of the site. Problem solved. You can't leave anonymous comments on journals, so unless you're logged in, that wouldn't even be possible.

And like Divided said, "No one is forcing you to post personal pictures and info. You did this."

Amen.

Divided By-I understand that it is we who are posting but I feel you are being a little harsh in communicating this. I for one did not know that anyone had access to what was written in the journals and no where in the literature for fat secret does it say that. It says if you are buddies only your information was not accessable to Googe or other sites like this. For the personal information part...some of us have become friends even though we have not met and share information with each other.Shame on you for berating us for this or making any one of us feel like we are stupid. I am sure if we realized where this information was going we would have thought more about it. In any event we realize we can take our pictures off however at this point this information has been on for a long time already and our concern is who has accessed it up to now. May even be people we know that know our user names who now maybe no information that we have chosen not to share with them. You say stop posting personal information on journals but that is part of the reason many people use fat secret. To share their personal experiences and make this journey together and in doing this you normally let others know more about you. If we were not being personal why would we even use this site?

Reply to Dividedby0 and fakeplasticL, I agree with Cathy, the whole point of Fatsecret is to share. Now maybe Cathy, I and others were naive in believing what FS has said in regards to buddies and private being private. But we did believe what they said about our privacy being protected. And it is not. But that is no reason to be harsh about it, considerate people skills are always appreciated. Perhaps we are not as computer savvy as you are and that is ok. This is all a learning experience for everyone. I wonder how you would feel if you do online banking only to find out everyone can access that information. It is the same thing. It is all about PRIVACY when a site assures you in the beginning it is PRIVATE. When a company, website, bank, Doctor office says my privacy is protected then, silly me, I believe them.

Hi Cindyshine, just wanted to let you know I accessed ALL your information when you were logged off, your little light by your name was not on and I was logged off also. So both of us were off and I could access both of our information as well as others. By the way, I left that post on your journal while BOTH of us were logged off.

You are taking that way too seriously and way too personally.

Calm down.

Since you have no idea who I am, allow me to introduce myself. I am the sarcastic-a**hole-extraordinaire of this site. And while my writing style is harsh, it is meant to be taken as a joke. It is obviously not your brand of humor.

For the record, you didn't REALLY have to send me your credit info, and I'm not REALLY going to steal Poet-In-Motion's TV.

Does that clear things up a bit?

Allow me to make my points in a more monotonous fashion as to not upset anyone's delicate sensibilities.

1) Posting personal information is, and has always been, a security risk. If you are not comfortable taking these risks, do not post personal information online. No one is forcing you to be here. You accept all responsibility for your actions.

2) You can share personal stories, experiences, and advice with people under a false user name (shocker: Divided By Zero is NOT my real name), but it is still not a good idea to let out extremely personal information like your real name, address, workplace, etc. to people you do not trust. Internet predators can and will take advantage of that information.

3) If you're paranoid about someone finding out you're on a diet online, your ego is immense and you care way too much about what other people think of you. You should be proud of wanting to improve your health, not ashamed.



@WECANDOTHIS: about
You could not have been logged off because the site still posted your name with your comments. Do you have Internet Explorer set to automatically log on to certain sites and to remember passwords? Do you keep the "Remember Me" box checked when you log in ("Remember Me" makes you log in to Fat Secret automatically)? If so, that could be what you are experiencing. If you were truly logged off the site would not have been able to post your user name with your comments on Cindy's journal.

I just logged off and clicked on your name. It redirects me to sign in. So rest assured, your information is private and no one can see it when they aren't logged in. Even when I AM logged in, because I'm not on your Buddy List I can not see your weights or journals. Your information is private. You don't have anything to worry about.

Thank you Divided by Zero for answering that.

Wecando, he is right, before I answered this (or meanwhile) I had Fakeplasticlala test that out for me. She could not see MY profile while SHE WAS signed OUT. It directed her to sign in, just like /0 says.
There is no way you could have left an anonymous comment, therefore you MUST HAVE been logged in since it recognized your name.

Now, yes I worry someone will recognize my pic and ridicule my diet/life/stories, SOMEWHAT of that EGO /0 mentions, but as a girl -I worry way too much anyway. lol
Then, and only when someone request to be buddy's I will allow them in or out!

And for the record /0 is right about his sacrastic A-hole....
BUT He actually knows his stuff! He is very smart about foods and work outs and even computers.
and yeah, he is funny too!!! (although, I didn't take this topic as lightly as fplala did either lol)