Valhalla Island

It bothers me when friends here complain about how Facebook tells everyone what they’ve been doing. You can turn it off with the click of a slider. It bothers me more when highly web application competent people complain about Facebook’s privacy stealing features, including their new Beacon service, that has the potential to tell people what you purchase on external websites.

To straighten things out, here’s what’s happening in chronological order using our fictional character Frank Grimes or Grimesy as he’s affectionately known:

1. Grimesy signs up to Facebook.
2. Grimesy adds his friends, accepts friend requests he wants and rejects those he doesn’t.
3. Grimesy makes a purchase online.
4. Facebook asks Grimesy if he’d like that purchase to be shown in his news feed that can be seen by the friends he’s added and accepted.
5. Grimesy clicks “Yes”.
6. Grimesy complains Facebook is stealing his privacy.
7. Grimesy participates in a virtual witch hunt against Facebook.

I hate Mark Zuckerberg as much as the next person. Just look at him telling developers how much users “LOVE the news feed” over and over again. You just want punch him in that smug face of his.

I do love Facebook though, it’s a great application. But it’s almost unbelievable people are complaining about their privacy being stolen when an application that they’ve signed up for tells, with they’re explicit permission, the friends they’ve added about the purchases they make.

It’s the equivalent of someone locking themselves into a jail cell then protesting against false imprisonment. Stupid.