Subscribe

Facebook’s privacy problem

by Jay on January 18, 2010

: Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A few days ago, there was a minor kerfuffle on the Web when it was pronounced that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg declares the age of privacy over. This, of course, freaked out everyone who has embarrassing details squirreled away on Facebook (like exactly how much company time you waste on Mafia Wars and Farmville), even though Zuckerberg never actually said those words or much of anything like them.

What Zuckerberg was discussing was how, when he first built Facebook, not sharing was the default assumption for all user data — and how that runs contrary to how he’d probably design the site if he was building it today. While that’s an interesting admission from someone with more than a little influence on how privacy is handled online for millions of people, it isn’t exactly the call to arms that many privacy advocates wanted it to be.

The interesting part of this recent privacy flap is that it occurred in response to a question about Facebook’s revised privacy controls — the ones they changed because Facebook felt like it. Just like they exposed your buying habits with Facebook Beacon a while back — whether you liked it or not. The worrying issue here isn’t that Facebook wants to expose all your data –mining your habits for actionable sales information is their longterm business model — but that Facebook can change their mind at the drop of a hat. Your service level agreement with Facebook is basically “It’s free so we’ll do what we damn well like.”

Moreover, given their Beacon history and Zuckerberg’s recent comments, Facebook’s default change is always going to be to expose more of your data until public opinion beats them back. Keep that in mind before you completely supplant your local contact list with a Facebook Friends list. We can keep Facebook from stealing or losing your data, but we can’t stop them from sharing it.