What's the best way to use FACEBOOK safely? We don't want to be scammed or used for marketing .?

[Kittysue]

I only allow friends to see my page, photos, etc -- not friends of friends or even people I might have gone to school with but am no longer in touch with. Honestly if I haven't spoken to them since 5th grade, I don't really need to be friends with them now.

You can change the privacy settings. I only accept people that I personally know - not friends of friends, random strangers, people I only know online from other sites, etc. I do not put my birthday, home address, phone number, email or any other personal info and the hometown I list is where I grew up, not where I am living now (I don't even live in the same country). And as the poster above says, I also never accept any third party apps - when you try to sign up you'll often get a message saying something like "Allow [company] to access my info and my friends' info" -- and whenever I see that I cancel out of it.

When I first signed up I used to accept more friends but have now gone through a purge and defriended ex-workmates, old school friends I never spoke to, people I might have met once or twice in the past but never stayed in touch with, etc