What Is SIM Card Swapping? 5 Tips to Protect Yourself From This Scam

Your SIM card’s number is a gateway for relentless criminals. With something as simple as a string of digits, hackers can swiftly deplete your bank account.

Do you want to know the scariest part? Cybercriminals don’t even need to steal your phone to gain access to your number and personal information. This recent trend in hacking has become known as SIM card swapping.

Let’s take a closer look at what SIM card swapping is, and how you can avoid it.
How Does a SIM Card Work?

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of the SIM swapping fraud, you’ll need to know how a SIM card works. Do you remember when you purchased your last phone? You might’ve noticed that one of your carrier’s representatives swapped your SIM card from your old phone to your new one.



Believe it or not, that tiny chip in your phone stores all of your essential account information. When its 20-digit ICCID number falls into the hands of a skilled criminal, you’re in trouble.
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What Is the SIM Card Swapping Scam?

SIM card swapping involves a lot of trickery and deception. Hackers contact your service providers and hope to speak with an especially trusting employee. They’ll impersonate you to get what they want: your SIM card data.

If their scam is successful, your SIM card data will transfer to the criminal’s SIM card. No, they aren’t interested in your text messages or phone calls from your friends; they’re focused on receiving two-factor authentication (2FA) messages from accounts that hold your valuable information.

Most banks require 2FA when you sign in to your online account. But instead of you inputting the one-time password (OTP) received through SMS, the hacker does.

Tips to Protect Yourself From SIM Card Swapping

While there’s not much you can do once a hacker gets hold of your SIM card information, there are still methods you can use to prevent it from happening. Here are some of the most effective ways to halt hackers:
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1. Change Your 2FA Method

Receiving your 2FA through text messages is convenient and all, but it can only make your situation worse when you’re a victim of SIM card swapping.

Opting to use an authenticator app like Authy or Google Authenticator associates your OTP with your actual phone, rather than your phone number. Simply connect the app to your most important accounts and you’ll receive your security codes through the app instead. 

Set Up a PIN with Your Mobile Carrier

Adding a PIN to your account makes it harder for a hacker to gain access to it. A SIM swapper will have to provide your secret PIN or passcode when trying to make changes to your account, and that’s why it’s so important to have one.

Fortunately, you can add a PIN to your account by visiting your carrier’s website.

If you’re a customer at Verizon, you’re required to have a PIN. To edit or add a PIN to your account, sign in to your account Verizon’s PIN management page. After you determine your PIN, re-type it, then hit Submit.

To create a PIN on T-Mobile, sign in to your My T-Mobile account. You’ll have to pick a verification method and hit Select. Once this is complete, enter your PIN code, and click Next to confirm.

With AT&T, you can add a passcode to your account by signing in, and going to your Profile. Under Wireless passcode, hit Manage extra security. Clicking the checkbox will require you to provide a passcode when making major changes.

You can add a PIN from the Sprint website by signing in to your account, and selecting My Sprint. Click Profile and security, then locate the Security information section. Simply add or edit your PIN, and hit Save.

3. Separate Your Phone Number From Your Accounts

Have you ever used your phone as a way to change your password? When hackers steal your SIM card data, they can too.

Once hackers have locked you out of your own accounts, they’ll gather as much information as they can. Criminals won’t hesitate to take money out of your bank account, or even worse, sell your personal information on the dark web.

Deleting your phone number from your most important online accounts can save you the headache of worrying about a SIM card swap. If you’re required to have a phone number associated with your account, get a VoIP number with Google Voice instead.  

To delete your phone number from Google, sign in to the Google Account page and head to the Personal Info section. If you see your phone number, make sure to delete it.



In the Security section, scroll down, and remove your phone number from the Ways we can verify it’s you option.



For Amazon, click Your Account, and then navigate to Login & Security. Erase your phone number or add a VoIP number from there.



You can also erase your phone number from PayPal by clicking the gear icon in the corner of the web page. Under the Phone section, choose to change your number.



You should also erase your phone number on major social media sites, online retailers, and especially your online banking account.

4. Use Encrypted Messaging

SMS doesn’t support encryption, which means that hackers can easily spy on your messages and steal your 2FA codes. Using an encrypted messaging app such as iMessage, Signal, or WhatsApp can prevent nosy hackers.

5. Beware of Phishing Scams

You should always delete sketchy emails that ask for your personal information. Banks and other institutions will never request confidential information via email. These types of emails are always a result of a hacker trying to steal your information.

Are You a Victim of SIM Swapping?

Many victims don’t realize they’ve been SIM swapped until it’s too late. The biggest warning sign of the fraud is a loss of cell reception.

Some banks and mobile carriers have security measures that prevent SIM card swapping from happening in the first place. Your carrier may let you know if your SIM card has been re-issued, while banks will usually send you an alert if it detects unusual activity on your account.

Having your mobile number attached to your accounts makes signing in simple. However, you can’t always count on your phone number staying safe forever. SIM card swapping poses too much of a threat to guarantee your privacy.

Be on the lookout for phishing emails, as answering those malicious inquiries can make a hacker’s job easy. Don’t know what a phishing email looks like? You can find more information in our article on how to spot a phishing email.


Image Credit: VitalikRadko/Depositphotos

How to Spot a Phishing Email

The email drops into your mailbox. It’s from PayPal, informing you that due to some unauthorized use of your account, it has been locked. “Damn hackers,” you think, “trying to guess my password again!”

You need to click the link in the email to re-enable your account and set a new password… but stop right there. The email you’re reading is a very well-crafted phishing email, designed to scam you. The information it contains is false: your account is not locked or restricted.

Phishing emails are becoming increasingly sophisticated, so what can we do to spot one and avoid being scammed?
Spotting a Phishing Email is Tough

While it’s not impossible to spot a phishing email (a message purporting to be from a legitimate company, designed to con you into divulging personal information) for most people – 80%, according to a new survey by CBS News and Intel Security – it’s pretty difficult. It’s not all bad news though; while I managed 90% in the survey, which you can still take online, a previous Intel survey revealed 94% of information security professionals were tricked by a phishing email at least once.

Being duped by phishing emails means more than just enabling someone to harvest your details. These scammers might glean enough information to be able to steal your identity (available for pennies on the Dark web), use it to borrow money in your name, and leave you with some financial headaches. Meanwhile, that cash is used for illicit purposes, funding illegal industries such as the drugs trade, human trafficking and child pornography. There has even been suggestion in the past few years that terror groups are generating funds by converging their interests with organized crime. Here's How Much Your Identity Could Be Worth on the Dark WebIt's uncomfortable to think of yourself as a commodity, but all of your personal details, from name and address to bank account details, are worth something to online criminals. How much are you worth?

Allowing yourself to be conned and letting the banks and credit card companies clean up the mess is not the answer. At the very least, it is an incredible risk to take, one that can be avoided by educating yourself about how to spot a phishing email.

Some Example Phishing Emails

It’s not possible to share every single example of a phishing email, but the chances are you’ll get one of these over the next few months. Even if you don’t, we can use these examples to demonstrate the continually improving sophistication of these messages. These days, it can be tough to spot a phishing email simply because they look so convincing.

PayPal



This is a very convincing phishing email targeting PayPal accounts. While phishing messages in the past might have been littered with links, this one just has the single “Log in here.” Style and subtlety clearly win out here, and there is little indicating that it is fake. However, three clues tell us it is a fake:
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We have a spelling mistake: “its just an error…” which you can see in the bold type towards the end.
The sender’s address, “confirmagain@ppservice.com” – this is clearly not PayPal.
PayPal will not send you an email with a login link.
Apple – Or Is it a Bank?



This is a very polished phishing email, seemingly from Apple, asking the recipient to check some unread messages. But if you get fooled by this email, you’ve a long way to go:
Sender is listed as “drowley@midwestbank.com” – is this from Apple, or a bank?
Hovering the mouse over the “Read Now >” link reveals a link that is clearly not the Apple website (nor that of a bank).
The App Store doesn’t store or route messages.
WhatsApp with this Email?



With this email, the presentation is reasonable, but the brevity of content – that there is a WhatsApp message to play – is enough to convince the recipient to click Play to find out who is trying to get in touch. As with the other messages, however, there are clues here:

The sender email, “dajohns@mixom.com”, has clearly nothing to do with WhatsApp. Arguably, it might be misconstrued by the recipient as being the sender of the voicemail message, but in this case, if it’s an unknown email address, you’d be advised to avoid it.
“Whats App” is displayed as two words at the top of the message, and as one word in the footer.

I don’t have a WhatsApp account.

In each of the three examples above, there is enough information, if you look closely enough, to determine that the message is bogus. If you receive these or anything else that you have doubts about, you should mark them as junk.

Tools You Can Use to Block Phishing Emails

If you’re still not 100% confident (and you shouldn’t be, as this is a tough game to play), take advantage of the various tools at your disposal that can help with the detection and blocking of phishing emails.

For instance, if you’re using Microsoft’s Outlook email service from www.outlook.com, you’ll have a built in spam email detector, which is designed to pick up phishing emails. This works well about 95% of the time, with occasional phishing attempts making it into your inbox. If you spot these, you should mark them as “junk” to help Microsoft prevent them being picked up by other users. You should also take the time to confirm that you’re not spamming your friends with dangerous emails thanks to malware installed on your PC. Hotmail Is Dead! Microsoft Outlook Email Services Explained Stop searching for Hotmail! Microsoft Outlook email services are confusing. Here are Outlook web app, Outlook Online, and others explained.

Similarly, Google’s Gmail service will also detect and divert spam and phishing emails to the junk folder, leaving you free to carry on with your email reading without criminal distraction.

Meanwhile, premium online security suites, such as Bitdefender 2016, include tools to protect you from phishing attempts. Rather than protect you at the email inbox level, these tools tend to focus on your browser, and prevent you from visiting fraudulent websites or entering information in them. 

Do you know how to spot a phishing email? Have you been caught out in the past? Tell us about it in the comments box below.


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How to Delete Your Personal Data From Public Record Websites

When someone Googles your name, there’s a whole host of information about you they might find. Sometimes this is good, like finding links to your personal website or Twitter account. But sometimes there is information that you don’t want to share online, like your home address or phone number.

Directory listing websites can hold a lot of your personal information. But fortunately there is a way to get this information taken down. In this article, we’ll show you have to take control of your personal data and get your details deleted from these websites.
What Types of Sites Collect Your Personal Data?

You might be shocked by how many websites list information about you. Sites like online directories, address listing sites, and background check websites are common. You’ll find sites like Whitepages.com, which lists personal information on many people in the U.S. (In the U.K., 192.com does the same thing.)

Often these sites have some information available publicly. Then they charge people to access more information such as full addresses.

The idea is that these sites can offer useful information for potential employers, skip tracers, or journalists. But this data can very easily be misused. And you never know who is looking at your personal information.

What Information About You Is Available Online?

These sites can gather a lot of information about you, including:
Your name
Your current home address
Other addresses where you have previously lived
Your email address
Your mobile and home phone numbers
Date of birth
Names of your relatives
Details of any criminal convictions
Details of arrests that did not lead to a conviction
Names of your friends, business partners, or housemates
Whether you are married or divorced and the name of your spouse
Your education
Your employer
Assets, such as whether you own a house

Some sites may even have access to much more sensitive personal data such as your social security number.

What’s Wrong With Personal Info Being Available?

When you see it listed out like that, it’s pretty scary how much information about you can be obtained. Especially as all it takes to find is a quick Google search. If you’re concerned about privacy, you should get this information taken down. This is particularly important if you want to avoid being stalked or harassed.

But there’s another reason to be concerned about the availability of this data too. Having this information easily available makes you vulnerable to identify theft, spear phishing, SIM swaps, and other cyber attacks. The more people who can access your personal details, the easier it is for someone to pretend to be you or to target you in an attack.

Simply: anyone can steal your identity.
Where Do These Websites Get Their Data?

Although these sites may be annoying and intrusive, they are not illegal. Even though you didn’t give you information to the sites personally, they merely collate information which is already publicly available.

Often these sites source data from public government databases. These include the electoral roll, census records, criminal conviction databases, marriage certificate records, land use records, and more.

While you have to accept that some information about you will be publicly available, it’s quite a different story to have all this data available on one website. It’s also concerning that this information is accessible through a simple Google search.

Another source of information that many sites use is your social media profiles. If you have publicly accessible personal information available on your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter account, it will likely end up on a directory site. You might want to delete information from social media sites. Also you can consider whether you share too much information online.

How to Remove Your Information From Public Sites

It used to be that listings websites would make it very difficult for you to remove your data. Often they would request annoying things like printing and posting a paper form, or even requiring you to send a fax.

But now, thanks in part to new EU data control laws, the sites must give you a reasonable way to remove your details. Even if you live outside the EU, if the site operates within Europe then it must allow you to remove your information.

Unfortunately there is no way to opt out of all these sites at once. You will have to submit a request for your data to be removed from each site individually. But it shouldn’t take too long. Usually you just need to fill out an online form and the site will take down your details within a few days.

A word of warning though: sometimes sites will ask for more of your details in the removal form. You should only ever give the details that the site already has. For example, maybe a site lists your name and address but not your phone number. When you fill out the removal form you should only put in your name and address.

If the site asks for a phone number or email address, use a fake one. Don’t give any more information to these sites than they already have.

Where to Go to Remove Your Information

Here is a list of some of the most common data collection websites with links to their respective opt out pages:
WhitePages
411.info
PeopleFinders
USA-People-Search [No Longer Available]
BeenVerified
192.com
PeekYou
Intelius
Radaris

You can find a longer list of personal data websites with instructions on how to remove your details from each at wiki.onerep.com.

The best way to check which sites you need to remove your data from is by running a search on yourself. Enter your name into Google and see what comes up. If you have a common name, add your state or zip code to the search query to filter out irrelevant results.
Remove Your Personal Data and Stay Safe

Directory sites, background check sites, and address listing sites are all common. They can list information about you without your permission.

But you can get your data taken down. Using the links in this article you can have private, or even false, data removed from the web. It will help protect you against cyber attacks.

While you’re at it, you might want to clear your data from Google to further improve your online privacy and delete browser extensions that are known to steal personal data. Also learn how Google’s reCAPTCHAs can capture your private information.

Google's ReCAPTCHAs Also Capture Your Private InformationGoogle's reCAPTCHA bot-detection pop-ups are a common site on the web. But what information are they collecting?Read More

Image Credit: lightsource/Depositphotos


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Google’s ReCAPTCHAs Also Capture Your Private Information

CAPTCHAs are great for security, but terrible for your privacy.

Interesting fact: you actually rarely encounter an original CAPTCHA. They’ve largely been supplanted by reCAPTCHAs, a system owned by search engine giant, Google. And in an effort to stop spambots, reCAPTCHAs have evolved so much, they’re now a threat to your privacy.
What Are reCAPTCHAs?

A Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) was a useful tool in stopping bots from spamming forms. Traditional CAPTCHAs skewed text in an effort to make it unreadable for malicious software. Humans could decipher it, however, so these acted as filters.

Spambots got smarter. CAPTCHAs had to evolve. They changed into reCAPTCHAs, developed by the same team who originally came up with the tests. Google acquired the project in 2009. This raised some eyebrows because many users are doubtful of its intentions.

ReCAPTCHAs were nonetheless used for great effect. They advanced machine learning. Instead of random letters, a reCAPTCHA comprised of words Google’s bots couldn’t decipher. Knowledge gained from these upgraded tests meant automated digitization of much classic literature for its Google Books service.
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Then algorithms overtook humans. ReCAPTCHAs became redundant. Which is why Google introduced NoCAPTCHA reCAPTCHA.

What Is NoCAPTCHA reCAPTCHA?

Have you ever clicked on the “I’m not a robot” button and been approved without having to insert any additional information? That’s because the site uses reCAPTCHA v2 or later.

With its second version, Google introduced verification based on other metrics—namely, if the user’s other activities on the site are indicative of a human or bot. CAPTCHAs are only presented if that fails.

Then along came reCAPTCHAs v3. This update eliminated the “I’m not a robot” checkbox. It’s also designed to streamline the process, so the user experience is a much nicer one.

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This uses the same foundation as version 2, in that it assesses activity across the site. It goes further than that, though, by digging deeper into your online movements.

It further cuts the risk of CAPTCHA farmers (people employed to break traditional CAPTCHAs) making it through the security measure. With v3, their task would essentially be to guess how normal users interact with the site; but due to v3’s wider scope, a more comprehensive online profile must be in place too.

4.5 million sites use reCAPTCHA already (including a quarter of the top-ranking 10,000). More than 650,000 of these have reCAPTCHA v3 installed.

You’ll find different versions of reCAPTCHAs across the internet because website admins could still use outdated plug-ins. ReCAPTCHAs v1 (basic CAPTCHAs) are bad for a site’s security, but better for your privacy.
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Why reCAPTCHA Is Bad for Your Privacy

How does reCAPTCHA v3 work and why is that a negative thing for your privacy?

One of the ways v3 checks validity is through examining whether you already have a Google cookie installed on your browser. Cookies are stored data about your interactions with a site, generally so elements can load again faster. Sign into a Google account, and reCAPTCHAs like you already. The rationale is sound: anyone with a Google account is more likely to be a real human, not a bot.

Admins are encouraged to embed the reCAPTCHA code on all web pages (protected through changing encryption keys), so the service can more accurately gauge typical activity. Which raises questions about the data collected and what Google does with it.
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Based on these, reCAPTCHA assigns visitors a score, marking them low or high risk. 1.0 means you’re definitely human. 0.0 means you’re almost certainly a spambot. Generally, low-risk users won’t need to go through any further validation.

It also means anyone using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is automatically flagged as a high risk. And yet many—including MakeUseOf—recommend you use a VPN to enhance your online privacy. Activity data isn’t captured because visitors are anonymized. VPNs beat region locks and censorship. They can save you cash. And they’re a barrier against cybercriminals.

In fact, there are loads of reasons you should use a VPN. It’s a considerable setback for reCAPTCHA to penalize those who use one. It’s not a major shock, however: Google relies on information about its users for revenue. 

What Does Google Do With Personal Information?

How does Google use the data collected?

The service gathers software and hardware information about site visitors, like IP address, browser plug-ins, and the device you’re using.

Google assures users that anything collected through the reCAPTCHA API isn’t used to ascertain your interests. It’s not used for ads—which might surprise you.

“The information collected in connection with your use of the service will be used for improving reCAPTCHA and for general security purposes. It will not be used for personalized advertising by Google.”

Of course, Google isn’t the only company that tracks you. Look at social media plug-ins, used to share articles on Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Some of these widgets collect visitor information too—meaning it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a profile: Facebook can still track you. It Doesn't Matter If You're Not On Facebook: They're Still Tracking YouA new report claims the Facebook is tracking people without their permission. It doesn't matter if you don't use social networking service: they're still watching you. What can you do about it? Read More

There’s nothing about reCAPTCHA v3 in Google’s Terms of Service. This is despite reCAPTCHAs linking to these policies. It means we just have to take their word for it.
What Does the Future Hold for CAPTCHA?

The core issue, aside from privacy concerns, is that even reCAPTCHA v3 isn’t good enough. A research team found that artificial intelligence still had a 90 percent success rate.

There’s added pressure now because we’re aware of potential privacy violations.

The problem is that human diversity means finding common solutions is difficult. Image-based CAPTCHAs typically ask you to look for road signs, but a trial tested whether deciphering facial expressions could also work. As you can imagine, it didn’t.

Game-based tests seem a good option. These could be simply moving puzzle pieces into the right slots and would require rotating elements. Without instructions, bots could struggle with making such connections. However, the system would rely on human logic—which isn’t exactly reliable.

Amazon patented an interesting, if seemingly flawed, notion in 2017. It posited that human fallibility is the key. The “Turing Test via Failure” would present challenges most people would find too difficult to complete, especially in a short timeframe. Humans do it wrong and get verified. Bots always give the correct answers (or that’s the theory).
Increasing Google’s Monopoly?

Luis von Ahn, CAPTCHAs’ co-creator who worked with a team at Carnegie Mellon University, argues reCAPTCHAs’ acquisition by Google is fair because many already assumed the internet behemoth owned the service. Version 3 makes it clear that reCAPTCHAs favor Google users. Is this another way the company is getting a stranglehold on the internet?

Or are its intentions true?

Either way, if you feel at odds with Google, you could switch browser to a more private option. Nonetheless, in our assessment of mainstream browser security, Chrome came out on top…

It Doesn’t Matter If You’re Not On Facebook: They’re Still Tracking You

A new report claims the social networking service is tracking people without their permission. It doesn’t matter if you don’t even use Facebook: they’re still watching you. Here’s what that means to you, and what you can do about it.
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Of course, Facebook’s privacy settings have been a worry since the site was set up in 2004, and frequent changes to your settings means there’s often a fresh new concern. But we do throw ourselves online with such enthusiasm! Photos, private messages, locations – many of us document our lives using Facebook and Twitter. 

And when Facebook acquired WhatsApp, even the privacy of that SMS service got a few sweating.

And to add further fuel to controversies, the Belgium Privacy Protection Commission (CPVP/CBPL) says Facebook “tramples” on European privacy laws…

What Are They Doing?



Following a report by their inter-university centre, EMSOC/SPION, in conjunction with their counterparts in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany, the commission states:
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“The research results are disconcerting. Facebook disregards European and Belgian privacy legislation in several ways… [Tracking people through social plug-ins] does not only impact Facebook users but also virtually every Internet user in Belgium and Europe.”

The social networking giant has seemingly ignored EU law by tracking traffic on Facebook.com domains – fan pages, most notably, but also profiles with looser privacy settings – that don’t require an account. Perhaps more worryingly, the social plug-in used to “Like” pages across more than 13 million websites reads tracking cookies and sends that data onto Facebook.

So it actually doesn’t matter if you’ve got a Facebook account or not: they can still track you.

And if you do have a Facebook account, session cookies allow the service to track sites you visit even after logging out.

EU privacy law asserts that consent has to be given before using tracking cookies (though exemptions apply if cookies are necessary to connect to a service or if they’re needed to deliver something the user has requested). It’s basically the reason websites have to let first-time visitors from the EU know that they employ cookies.
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How Are They Getting Away With It?



A spokesman from Facebook said:

“As we expressed to the CBPL in person when we met, there is nothing more important to us than the privacy of our users and we work hard to make sure people have control over what they share and with whom. Facebook is already regulated in Europe and complies with European data protection law, so the applicability of the CBPL’s efforts are unclear. But we will of course review the recommendations when we receive them with our European regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.”

And that’s the crux of Facebook’s argument: that they’re only subject to Irish law, as their European headquarters (a lavish, typically-cool building designed by Frank Gehry, complete with ping-pong table, inspirational posters, and giant illustrations of astronauts) is in Dublin.

The idea of shadow profiles – information about people who don’t use the service – isn’t anything new, of course. Max Schrems, Austrian activist and founder of Europe v Facebook, previously spoke out about Facebook flouting European law, and said in 2011:

“Now we are rather positive that the Irish authorities will make Facebook change a whole lot. If you read the interviews with the authority it seems like they are taking the cause very seriously.”

The Privacy Protection Commission doesn’t have the power to impose fines, but can begin lawsuit procedures.

Article 29 is Also Kicking up a Fuss



The Belgium Privacy Protection Commission isn’t the only agency concerned about tracking cookies. The Article 29 Working Party, an independent data regulator, says social plug-ins should also ask permission from the user before sending out cookies, and that session cookies should expire when logged out of Facebook.

You can opt out of tracking used for advertisements by the social network, but Brendan Van Alsenoy, who contributes to the European Law Blog, told The Guardian:
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“Facebook cannot rely on users’ inaction (ie not opting out through a third-party website) to infer consent. As far as non-users are concerned, Facebook really has no legal basis whatsoever to justify its current tracking practices.”

Last month, Facebook admitted to tracking non-users, but said it was due to a bug that is being fixed.
What Can You Do About It?

As Facebook says, you can opt-out of personalised ads which can publicise your likes, or you could even use non-tracking browser extensions like Disconnect (though these can sometimes be a pain when leaving comments, for example). Otherwise, some extensions like Edit This Cookie for Chrome let you customise which cookies you allow.

It’s very easy to get frustrated with the social network, and the European Commission (EU) has a recommendation if you are concerned about your privacy. In a hearing (instigated by Max Schrems) concerning the Safe Harbour framework, which allows the transmission of personal data from Europe to the USA, EU Legal Advisor.

“You might consider closing your Facebook account, if you have one.”

If you think this might be a step too far, you could try a trial deactivation. But if you’re too sceptical about what Facebook does with your data, you can indeed properly close your account. This Is What Facebook Does with Your Data & How To Opt Out [Weekly Facebook Tips]Facebook is a publicly traded company. As such, its success isn't just measured in traffic or users, but first and foremost in revenue. In other words, Facebook is pressured to make more money.

Have you ever considered leaving Facebook? Why? Or have you already left the network – and, in retrospect, do you think this was a good move? Let us know below.

Image Credits: Spy vs Spy by Tony Fischer; Cookie Monster by Surian Soosay; and Self Snitch by Poster Boy.