One of Facebook's best features is sharing photos with family and friends. But indiscriminate sharing of personal photos can be dangerous. Facebook encourages its users to share with everyone, and most of the service's default settings make the information you share available to anyone who stumbles upon your profile.

To manage who can access your Facebook account, click Account in the top-right corner and choose Privacy Settings to view your current settings for sharing in nine categories. The option to let friends of people tagged in your photos view the images is selected by default.

It may be that you don't mind people you don't know seeing your images. If you would prefer to limit access to your photos, uncheck this option. To see more access options, click "Customize settings" to fine-tune your Facebook sharing.

On the Customize Settings page, select "Edit privacy settings for existing photos albums and videos" at the end of the "Things I share" options to open a page listing your current albums and videos. Choose Customize in the drop-down menu under an entry to view more share options. These include the ability to limit access to specific people and to hide the album or video from the people you specify.

Under "Things others share" on the custom privacy-settings screen are options for limiting the people who can view photos and videos you're tagged in. You can also disable Facebook's facial-recognition feature that identifies you in photos other people post and automatically suggests that they tag you.

Click the Edit Settings button and choose Customize in the drop-down menu that appears to access the same specify/hide options described above for your own photo albums and videos. Facebook's Controlling How You Share page goes into more detail on the options for sharing your information on the service.

Read the article written by Dennis O'Reilly on CNET How To.