Senator Al Franken Facebook privacy settings (opens in new tab)

There is another difference between twitter and facebook.

The twitter opt-out was for one feature and only on that one site.

Facebook doesn't provide a way to completely opt out of this feature.

Note #4 on the list 'Finally, check Facebook’s “Help Center” frequently to see an up-to-date list of applications that need to be individually blocked to maintain your privacy'

Facebook takes the action of automatically adding you to new sites, but not telling you that they have done this. So the onus is on you to continually go back and remove these sites from your feed.

Furthermore, Facebook is continuing to share your information with these sites, all you are turning off is your view of what is being shared.

It's very shady.

"that people signed up based on a particular set of terms but the company then changed those terms and switched a default opt-in to a default opt-out after the fact"

Thanks for putting this in such clear terms. I am not on FB but whenever i get asked again - this is what i am going to tell them.

Yes, and this is the same sort of problem many people had with Buzz. Your contact list was private, and then -- wham! -- there it is (or parts of it) for the world to see. (And your profile à la Buzz started aggregating Google-related activity; even if aspects of it were not previously designated "private", hanging it all off of your profile sure made it more accessible.)

If you knew at the start that that would happen, it might have stopped you from giving them -- originally and mostly through Gmail -- your contacts list. (Or using other affected services.) But when you signed up, they were all about "privacy" -- particularly after their previous efforts to reassure people in the face of concerns over automated ad targeting in Gmail. (Which was its own event, but I guess people generally decided that, as long as its purely automated and doesn't affect anything more than ad presentation, they could live with it.)

Hmm... as a thought exercise, what if your Gmail content starts affecting not just ad presentation but your search results. Would you have a bit more concern, then?

What if your employer starts examining employees' "customized" search results (perhaps by hiring a third party that specialized in this) and making inferences?

I assume they can and some may well already log and analyze the ads returned on those searches. Now that ads are starting to "follow people" across searches and sessions -- at least at some sites -- what personal habits might you inadvertently be bringing with you to work, via third parties' tracking of and response to your web use?

Accidental downvote, sorry. Would have emailed you if you had contact info in your profile.

Remember Beacon?

The News Feed is shared with people you know, and only people you have added as Friends (or sometimes one step removed when somebody you know comments on a photo or something).

Beacon was about selling your information to advertisers and 3rd parties whom you had a very loose connection with. The example being the guy who bought his engagement ring and had it broadcast via facebook before he was even engaged.

With the news feed, you control the information which is posted (with the exception of being tagged in photos).

Now Facebook is sharing your information with 3rd parties whom you have NO connection with.

I don't use Docs, Yelp, or Pandora, but they were given access to all my information.

Remember, they were 'given' access before Facebook announced what was happening. Before we had the option to opt-out.

This is becoming a FB blindspot. Zuckerburg (and FB in general) now just dismiss all criticism of any changes they make because -- hey! News Feed was criticised.

I don't know that betting your business against growing storms of criticism on nothing more than a reverse gambler's fallacy is the best plan, tbh.

The demographic is vastly different now. Imagine this sorta thing goes on the 6 o'clock news which parents would interpret as a hazard to their family's privacy. Most of the current demographic will not understand Facebook's privacy settings. And the whole freakout over this is will be blown out of proportion to the point where parents are going to tell each other to "protect" their kids on Facebook or worse demand some sort of legislation that does.

One of the biggest reasons I think this might happen is because a vast majority of people still trust what they hear on the TV or radio over some website or online document that says Facebook cares about your privacy.

The Instant Personalization stuff has potential to actually be an issue, but everything else seems like an overreaction.