Facebook was founded with the intention of connecting with people you know. The site has evolved since then, and now Facebook seems to be focused on enhancing the entire web experience. It lets you share information easily and connect with people you don’t know who have similar interests. It also allows vendors target their services to your specific tastes. On the one hand, having a highly customized user experience sounds very idealistic, but on the other, some feel that personal information can be shared a bit too easily and without the users’ knowledge or control.

Facebook recently implemented a new “instant personalization” program that allows 3rd party sites to view info on FB profiles. No biggie, right? We do this all the time when we use Facebook Connect to log in to sites and post updates to our walls, etc. The difference this time around is that for certain sites, specifically Pandora, Yelp and Microsoft Docs, FB is automatically opting users in. What this means is that your profile will be automatically shared with these sites (and any future sites added to the program) unless you manually go in and opt out.

This of course assumes you can even find the setting to opt out. As Facebook has grown exponentially in popularity, it has also grown in complexity. Understanding their privacy policy is a job unto itself. What started out as a few paragraphs (just over 1000 words) back in 2005 has radically expanded to a large novel that is now longer than the US Constitution (almost 6000 words), and navigating Facebook’s privacy options is a particularly daunting task, with over 50 settings and 170 options to choose from. Thankfully, services like Reclaim Privacy help to highlight exactly which settings to change to keep your information private.

All of this has privacy advocates up in arms and backlash to the change has been notably swift. Media outlets have been quick to villify Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, going so far as to say he is out for “world domination” and reference 6 year old IM conversations from his college days. Several high-profile internet media types (Leo Laporte and Peter Rojas) have deleted or deactivated their Facebook profiles. A group of Google employees have also jumped ship. There is even a mass exodus from Facebook planned for May 31.

Is this really a gross invasion of privacy or is it just hype overblown by the media? My personal opinion is that Facebook is doing what businesses do: trying to make money. It is doing so by establishing partnerships with other businesses to enhance their users’ experience by providing a more personalized service. If a site can use my information to provide content that is actually relevant to me, instead of generic viagra ads and pr0n, then call me crazy but I think that may actually be a good thing. Ultimately end users have always had control over what information gets shared, because they are the ones that put the information there in the first place. This has been a mantra since the internet began: if you don’t want the world to know something, don’t put it on the internet.

That said, there is definitely a need for a way to share information with only specific people without worrying that it may someday become public due to a change in privacy policy. Many people felt this was what Facebook offered, and at some point in the distant past that may have once been the case. A new service created by NYU students called Diaspora is the flavor of the week offering just such a service. They are very new and as of this writing though they are not accepting new users, but I’ll be keeping an eye on them and post up a review when I can.

Let me know what you think of the Privacy Wars below!

Jason Calacanis – The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand
SmarterWare – What Private Facebook Information Your Friends Can Publish
NYTimes – Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options
Technologizer – Facebook Privacy Fodder
Mashable – 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips
Wired – The Facebook Privacy War: What is Personal Data?