Security is a huge issue on the Internet. Rightly so! Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes, and a lot of identity theft happens online.

Facebook certainly has had their issues with Internet security. About a year ago,

 

there was a big flap about Facebook putting people's personal information at risk.

Because of this issue, Facebook started making a lot of changes to help users protect themselves online. One of those changes was giving users the option to look at Facebook pages (fanpages) through the same type of secure, https, connection you would use for things like online banking.

Now, Facebook users can actually change their security settings so that they won't see a fanpage that has any material on it that's not brought into Facebook through an https, or secure, Internet connection.

Hold that thought for a moment, and let's talk about Facebook and businesses. A lot of people interact with the Internet mainly through the Facebook platform.

It's social, and they're used to it. Any business that wants to get noticed online needs a presence on Facebook. As opposed to individuals, businesses don't have profiles. They have pages, often called fanpages.

But here's the big problem with all of this.  Most business fanpages, are hybrid pages - such as w3 Internet Marketing for businesses. Part of the page, the two sidebars and the header, are from Facebook. The middle of the page, however, comes from outside Facebook. If any part of the page is not available through an https connection, users who just want to browse Facebook through a secure setting won't be allowed to see the page.

For a business, this would be devastating, especially as Facebook users become more and more sensitive about security and also as they learn more about how to change their security options on Facebook.

So bottom line…most business fanpages are not connected to Facebook via a secure, https, connection, and, as of October, 2011, Facebook is going to require that any business page be made available through a secure, https, connection.

In other words, there are literally hundreds of thousands of businesses out there whose pages are not viewable by Facebook users who are security conscious, and these pages won't be viewable by anyone as of October 1! Read what Facebook has to say on SSL from October 1

If you'd like to find out more about internet marketing and social media opportunities for businesses come on over to w3 Internet Marketing for businesses. You needn't have your business page deactivated - I can help you.