A few of us bloggers here have been keeping up on how Facebook has tried — and failed — to assuage fears over the social network’s privacy policies, and I would just like to include one more method that can be used to keep you safer on the site.

Despite the backlash Facebook has been receiving of late, the “Quit Facebook Day” campaign started by two Toronto men managed to get over 30,000 commitments to cut the cord on May 31, but it’s hard to say whether they all went through with it. That campaign was started purely on the premise that Facebook couldn’t be trusted to handle the kind of information users were posting to it, especially since the privacy policy was so flawed.

Chances are, you’re reading this and already a member of Facebook. If you’re concerned at all about how open Facebook can be, you should take a look at OpenBook, a site that highlights status updates based on search terms. I just went on there yesterday and the search term was none other than “vibrator”. I don’t even need to go into some of the hilarious — not to mention embarrassing — status updates random users had posted with that word in there.

A nice tool you can use to protect yourself a little bit more is Reclaim Privacy, a free add-on that can scan your Facebook account and let you know about anything that might be a little public. All you have to do is drag the grey button to your web browser’s bookmarks bar. Then log into Facebook, go to your privacy settings and let it scan everything to look for holes. Once that’s all done, you can keep the tool around for anytime you feel the need to run a scan.

The site also keeps tabs on what Facebook does regarding privacy, so if there’s a change or a concern, you will likely see it posted there, though you can opt to get informed through the site’s newsletter. There’s also useful information and articles on how Facebook has caused all this controversy over privacy.