How do I protect my privacy on Dreamwidth? (Part 2)
When we refer to something being "Public" on Dreamwidth, we mean the content can be viewed by anyone. This includes people without a Dreamwidth account, people you've banned from commenting in your journal, people who read your journal through an RSS reader, search engines, and others.
When you post content at the Public security level, you should assume that anyone can read it, forever. Deleting your Dreamwidth account will stop us hosting your journal content and your profile, but there are many services that store copies (caches) of content. These services can access any public entry at any time and store a copy of it for their own purposes. This can occur even if your entry is only public for a few minutes while you edit the security level.
This means there's no way for you to control who can read information you've posted at the Public security level. If you wish to control who can view content, you must initially post it a security level other than Public and then make sure that you never make the content Public in the future. Banning a user from your journal only stops them from sending you private messages and leaving comments on your entries. It does not (and cannot feasibly) prevent them reading your Public entries.
To ensure that your entries remain secure, consider setting a minimum security level for future entries in your journal so no entries are accidentally posted at a Public security level. The FAQ "How do I restrict who can see my entry?" contains more information on entry security.
The "Bio" field on your profile is always Public. For more information on the privacy settings available for your profile, please see the FAQ "What does my profile contain? Who can see the information on it?".
All of your icons are always Public.
Finally, there are many ways other than directly viewing someone's journal to find and read their Public entries, including RSS feeds, subscriptions, etc. Removing the links to these features doesn't stop a savvy user from entering the URLs that permit them to track your updates or view your RSS feed. We don't offer you the ability to remove links to these features because someone who wants to view your Public entries will find a way to do so whether there is an easy-access icon or not. We don't want to create illusions of security.
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When you post content at the Public security level, you should assume that anyone can read it, forever. Deleting your Dreamwidth account will stop us hosting your journal content and your profile, but there are many services that store copies (caches) of content. These services can access any public entry at any time and store a copy of it for their own purposes. This can occur even if your entry is only public for a few minutes while you edit the security level.
This means there's no way for you to control who can read information you've posted at the Public security level. If you wish to control who can view content, you must initially post it a security level other than Public and then make sure that you never make the content Public in the future. Banning a user from your journal only stops them from sending you private messages and leaving comments on your entries. It does not (and cannot feasibly) prevent them reading your Public entries.
To ensure that your entries remain secure, consider setting a minimum security level for future entries in your journal so no entries are accidentally posted at a Public security level. The FAQ "How do I restrict who can see my entry?" contains more information on entry security.
The "Bio" field on your profile is always Public. For more information on the privacy settings available for your profile, please see the FAQ "What does my profile contain? Who can see the information on it?".
All of your icons are always Public.
Finally, there are many ways other than directly viewing someone's journal to find and read their Public entries, including RSS feeds, subscriptions, etc. Removing the links to these features doesn't stop a savvy user from entering the URLs that permit them to track your updates or view your RSS feed. We don't offer you the ability to remove links to these features because someone who wants to view your Public entries will find a way to do so whether there is an easy-access icon or not. We don't want to create illusions of security.
Back one page | Up to table of contents | Next page
Last Activity: April 24th, 2010 (rainbow)
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