I agree, but it’s a matter of degrees. for a touchy-feely version of a nice way to scrape & track blogs with certain text strings (eg. “i hate george bush”), see:
http://www.wefeelfine.org/

facebook hands it all over on a silver platter in structured format, true, but every time we post and link; every time someone else links to us; everytime we sign up using openid, we are structuring data too – for “them” and for “us.” not to mention all the other stuff you don’t do: post/tag in flickr & delicious & twitter etc.

so yes, facebook is “worse” but the “less-worse” stuff isn’t all peaches & cream.

The delete-my-Facebook crusade continues over chez Steve:

It’s not about Facebook; it’s about making sure that we don’t establish a dangerous precedent for how we blindly hand over private data to web corporations.

I agree wholeheartedly with Steve, though as a guy with a URL that is: hughmcguire.net, who writes regularly about most of what you need to know about me if you were the secret police, I wonder how we digital privacy advocates will fare when the boots start stomping. Even if I decide to delete everything, you could still go visit the wayback machine to see what I had to say.

It’s not that simple. Facebook collects structured, specific information that makes it ridiculously easy for them / their partners / application developers / a good hacker to build a complete psychological (or other) profile on you.

– “Liberal Activists of Middle Eastern Descent in the Montreal area? Round ’em up!”
– “Sir, this profile presents signs in line with possible future criminal activity. We should keep an eye on them.”
– Etc.

Yes, I share lots on my blog that could constitute private information, but it’s not presented or structured in such a way that an organization could cull in any useful manner. Facebook is the great data miner in the sky.

Secondly, it’s also about the relationships we present inside Facebook. If I’m involved in activities that could be considered sketchy (I’m not), and my friend is about to get hired for a new job, I don’t want their employer finding their profile and seeing their link to me. Private voluntary disclosure is one thing; association / congregation privacy is a whole other ballpark.

And about “how we will fare when the boots start stomping”, I’ll do fine. Think of resisters side by side in line, all dressed differently, all wearing masks.

Now think of Facebook users and picture a guy in the front holding a big neon sign that says “My name is John! This is why you should get me first!” ;)

on a design note, the traces left in my eyeballs from trying to read steve’s bold-glowing-white-on-black-with-red site are still visible, three minutes later, as I write this on my white wp interface … ah… there…. gone now.

You really do need to get that checked. It’s for power savings… *

* … says the guy who just bought an 800w power supply for his desktop so that he can play Crysis…