Facebook Privacy Meltdown

I wrote a status update that I think some of you read last month. I talked about the new Facebook privacy settings and how they are down right evil.

The privacy updates are so slimy, they’ve prompted me to reflect on how I use the service.

In fact, Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook’s CEO) is touting how privacy isn’t a social norm anymore.

Well Sorry Mark, I don’t agree! I never gave my friends permission to control my privacy. And by no means do I buy into your corporate convenient vision that your users are throwing their privacy out the door.

To take back your privacy on Facebook, I’ve put together some simple steps to follow to put your profile in your hands, not your friends.

Following these steps will prevent your ‘friends’ from sharing your data.

Before you think I am an alarmist, consider this:
Apps are the biggest privacy culprit on Facebook. You may not install apps like Farmville, but your friends do. When you share your personal data with friends, you are also sharing it with your friend’s apps, AKA Farmville. So, Farmville or MafiaWars now has all of your personal information, if your friends are playing them.

If you limit what your friends can share, you are taking steps to control your own privacy. Facebook made it difficult to change these settings on purpose. The more open they are, the better it is for their budding startup. Unfortunately, these new privacy settings break the initial (unspoken) agreement Facebook had with it’s members, which led to people trusting them in the first place.

I afraid Facebook is probably too big to have the same melt down MySpace did, but if they keep this up, they might test that theory.

[image from Harry Halpin's Beyond Walled Gardens]