That didn’t take long. Just 24 hours after Facebook began rolling out a privacy announcement and settings tool to its more than 350 million users, a number of privacy experts and security firms are already out with statements advising against using the social network’s new recommended settings, which encourage users to share more data with “everyone.”
The issue, as we highlighted yesterday, is that while Facebook is spinning the changes as “setting a new standard in user control,” another goal is clearly getting users to share more information publicly, which makes its search partnerships with Google and Bing all the more valuable. And security experts are seeing right through it.
Experts Weigh In
Here’s what the ACLU of Northern California said in the comments of our post yesterday:
“As you’ve pointed out, the ‘privacy’ changes are all about encouraging [users] to share more stuff publicly.’ It’s great that Facebook is making all users think about privacy, but we are concerned that the transition tool and other changes actually discourage or eliminate some privacy protections that Facebook users currently employ.”
Here’s what the Electronic Frontier Foundation concludes in a lengthy commentary on the changes:
“The Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook’s users, whether intentionally or inadvertently … Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.”
A spokesperson from security firm Sophos says in a statement to Mashable:
“These could be the most important clicks you ever make on Facebook. If you don’t read carefully you could find that every post you make on Facebook, and your personal information, is visible to everyone in the world who has a computer rather than just your Facebook friends.
Let’s make this clear. If you make your information available to ‘everyone,’ it actually means ‘everyone, forever.’ Because even if you change your mind, it’s too late — and although Facebook say they will remove it from your profile they will have no control about how it is used outside of Facebook.”
The company has also produced this video demonstrating the new privacy transition tool while providing some security commentary:
A spokesperson from Web security firm Trend Micro adds in a statement to Mashable:
“It’s laudable that Facebook has taken continuous interest in this, but I would remind Facebook users that it is just not a private place. If you require strict privacy for your communications, photos, etc., find some other medium to share them. I would encourage all Facebook users to read and understand the privacy guidelines to be found on the site.
Second, what gets revealed in my FB page is entirely up to me. I choose the photo, I make the comments. Striking a balance between utter security (no visibility at all, and if that’s what you need may I suggest a diary) and entirely publicly visible and archived statements (as we have with Twitter) must lie the happy medium we seek. Getting there is not going to be instant because we don’t yet know what there means.”
I like that there is controversy about these settings. It shows people at least notice that there is something going on.”
A Huge Mistake?
All of these sources are essentially saying the same thing: The privacy changes at Facebook have the potential to create significant issues for those who don’t carefully review them, which, let’s be honest, is likely to be most users.
Like other controversial decisions the company has made, Facebook surely weighed the risks and rewards of this move. Their analysis likely concluded that the benefits of being more public (and search-engine friendly) far outweighed the risk of a lot more “Scandalous Facebook photos cost so and so his/her job” stories.
But really, there’s no turning back now. Millions of users have already been greeted by the new privacy tool, made changes and/or ignored it and moved on using Facebook how they always have, unaware of the ramifications of a change they might spend 30 seconds thinking about.
If it turns out that millions of users ultimately screw up their lives somehow thanks to Facebook’s privacy settings, the stigma that gets attached to the site could end up being a catastrophic blunder that sees the site lose its seemingly insurmountable lead, much like MySpace and Friendster before it.
Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Friendster, Google, Mashable, MySpace, Twitter
Tags: facebook, privacy
Dragon Search is a voice search app that aggregates results from Google, Wiki, Twitter, YouTube, and iTunes, and more. It’s good for free, and free for now, so get on it before they start charging.
Most of us take them for granted, but web designers have to deal with a myriad of frustrating problems on a daily basis. From browsers that 
