Price of Facebook Privacy? Start Clicking - NY Times

[onehandle]

Pop quiz: Which is longer, the United States Constitution or Facebook’s Privacy Policy? If you guessed the latter, you’re right. Facebook’s Privacy Policy is 5,830 words long; the United States Constitution, without any of its amendments, is a concise 4,543 words.

snip...

But in recent months, Facebook has revised its privacy policy to require users to opt out if they wish to keep information private, making most of that information public by default. Some personal data is now being shared with third-party Web sites.

As a result, the company has come under a blitz from privacy groups, government officials and its own users, who complain that the new policy is bewildering and the new opt-out settings too time-consuming to figure out and use.

snip...

The new opt-out settings certainly are complex. Facebook users who hope to make their personal information private should be prepared to spend a lot of time pressing a lot of buttons. To opt out of full disclosure of most information, it is necessary to click through more than 50 privacy buttons, which then require choosing among a total of more than 170 options.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/technology/personaltech/13basics.html

[rrneck]

1. Good info. Thanks. nt

[BuelahWitch]

2. I hope people keep the heat on Facebook to fix their privacy policy

And I'm glad to see FB get some negative publicity over it.

[Blue_Tires]

3. ttt

[bemildred]

4. Just lie about everything, make it all up.

Much easier.

[Quantess]

5. Just don't give them any of that information.

It's really not that difficult, people. A name and a hotmail email account and that's it. They have my boring photo too, big deal.

Set everything to the most private, then go to the privacy settings and uncheck the box. It takes all of a few minutes.

[JBoy]

6. This is the other shoe of Facebook dropping.

If you've always wondered what possible business model would be behind a seemingly free and useful service, here it is.