Last Friday afternoon around 4pm Facebook announced their new privacy settings that will take place in April.  The day and timing gave us a clue something was not right – why?  Because it is an old tactic of companies to release “bad” news late Friday afternoon.  That usually means that it has cycled through the news channels, rss feeds, front pages etc. by the time most people come back to work on Monday and so has disappeared while at the same time they “told” everyone.

So we looked a bit closer at the new privacy policy and at one paragraph in particular as shown here:

Pre-Approved Third-Party Websites and Applications. In order to provide you with useful social experiences off of Facebook, we occasionally need to provide General Information about you to pre-approved third party websites and applications that use Platform at the time you visit them (if you are still logged in to Facebook). Similarly, when one of your friends visits a pre-approved website or application, it will receive General Information about you so you and your friend can be connected on that website as well (if you also have an account with that website). In these cases we require these websites and applications to go through an approval process, and to enter into separate agreements designed to protect your privacy. For example, these agreements include provisions relating to the access and deletion of your General Information, along with your ability to opt-out of the experience being offered. You can also remove any pre-approved website or application you have visited here [add link], or block all pre-approved websites and applications from getting your General Information when you visit them here [add link]. In addition, if you log out of Facebook before visiting a pre-approved application or website, it will not be able to access your information. You can see a complete list of pre-approved websites on our About Platform page.

What does this mean to Facebook users?  It means that by default (i.e. unless you specifically opt out) your information that is on Facebook is now going to be shared with pre-approved 3rd party websites and applications.  And not just yours – your friends information too.  So when one of your friends visits a website then not only will that website be allowed to have their information but it will also be allowed to have your information just because they are your friend.

And what will these websites do with the information?  Who knows?  But I bet you it won’t be good for me.

Now we appreciate that there are times when it would be to our advantage to have that information made available to the 3rd party but in that situation I would prefer to be asked on a site by site basis.  As it is, all those people who don’t even know there is a policy and that it is going to change, will now be automatically sending their information to sites they may not have even visited or want anything to do with.

So how many people will close their account?  I have almost closed mine a few times this year and this may be the final straw.  I bet for some it is.  But for others…. how far is too far?  How far will you let Facebook sneak in these privacy changes and “sell” your private information to other companies without you “knowing” by sneaking in Friday afternoon announcements?

I think Facebook thinks it is invincible with so many users.  But what it forgets is how popular other internet social networks such as AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, MySpace were in their time and how quickly (almost overnight) they fell out of favor.

Time too review my account!