Facebook's done it again. The social networking giant has tried to act like a business and people are appalled, astounded, frightened and confused. Mark Zuckerberg, the company CEO, clearly wants to wring every bit of personal information from every one of his 500 billion-plus users. How terrible. He must be stopped. Or perhaps Facebook users and critics should stop being so ridiculous and open their eyes.
How many times do I have to tell people to stop putting stuff online that they do not want to share? Apparently I can say it until I'm blue in the face, but you won't listen. This latest imbroglio involved Facebook users home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Some people put them inside Facebook. If you haven't done so already, you can go to Facebook's Edit Profile page and then select Contact information. There, you can fill up the page with your AOL Instant Messenger ID, at least two phone numbers, complete home address, your web site URL and even additional e-mail addresses if you have them.
I guess, for some people, it seems perfectly natural to put everything into Facebook. Facebook is your friend. You spend every day on it sharing your innermost thoughts and feelings. It's like a coffee klatch sans the caffeine and intimacy.
So Facebook has all this information thanks to you. Now they want to share it. You see, a while ago Facebook introduced its Graph API, which lets third-party companies access all your profile information. No, they can't just go and do it, you have to approve everything Facebook shares. If you share nothing, then Facebook delivers an empty basket of information to third-party companies.
As noted above, Facebook decided it wanted to include all the home addresses and phone numbers you entered into its service with third party companies. As before, you have to opt-into this sharing. You install some Facebook game or join into some sort of group or Facebook affiliate and a message pops up saying the company wants to access your address and numbers. You have to decide to share it.
The wording on the Facebook message was not particularly helpful. Instead of saying you were "sharing" this private information it said you were letting the third party company "access" it. "Share" and "Access": Two subtly different words that make a perceptual difference.
Naturally, there was an outcry from everyone?even developers?and Facebook pulled up short, reversed course and by Monday had decided to hold off on implementing this little feature.
OK. Good for Facebook. The service listened and reacted quickly. Still, mark my words, the feature will be back. Facebook is hell bent on sharing everything you let it share. With that in mind, I have some suggestions for you.
Accept
Accept that Facebook is a social networking business with an aim to make a lot of money. It is not out to harm you, but is also not necessarily operating in your best interests.
Stop Sharing
Make a conscious decision to remove everything from Facebook you do not want to share. Pull your address, phone numbers, tell-all posts and photos that can tell more about you than you ever intended to share.
Learn How to Use Facebook
Since I assume you will be leaving some personal information on Facebook, learn how to use it effectively. Instead of an afternoon updating your status, perusing posts and photos, spend it going through each and every part of Facebook's privacy settings. There is a lot of control in there. Use it wisely.
Trust but Verify
I even want you to run a little test to see how much of you is already accessible to anyone in the outside world?including those not on Facebook. Start by typing this URL into your browsing address bar: http://graph.facebook.com/[USERNAME]. Replace [USERNAME] with your user name (no spaces). Hit return and you will see a window asking if you want to save a file. Do so. Note where it was saved and then drag and drop that file into notepad. With that done, you should see everything that third part companies can learn about you without even logging into Facebook.
I did this for Facebook Mark Zuckerberg and got this file:
{
"id": "68310606562",
"name": "Mark Zuckerberg",
"picture": "http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs443.snc4/50270_68310606562_2720435_s.jpg",
"link": "http://www.facebook.com/markzuckerberg",
"category": "Public figure",
"website": "www.facebook.com",
"username": "markzuckerberg",
"personal_interests": "openness, making things that help people connect and share what's important to them, revolutions, information flow, minimalismnnn",
"likes": 2715542
}
Mr. Zuckerberg obviously understands his service quite well and shares only a little bit of info. It's a good model for everyone's Facebook "graph". If you've done your job right with all of Facebook's privacy settings, your account graph should look the same.
Here's the thing. I like Facebook and I think that the amount of sharing we've done on the social network has actually served to bring us all a little closer together. I also understand that some people are happy to share more than others. If you like sharing and enjoy the environment, then my little tips will only serve to improve it for you. If you hate sharing and are terrified about what Facebook might do to your life, get off the service and please stop complaining.
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More Lance Ulanoff:
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