Thoughts on privacy

I just read an article snippet about the founder of Facebook deciding to make his profile entirely open under his site's new Privacy rules. I'm sorry, but if I want to share everything about myself with everyone I've ever known, I'll just use Twitter. There's never been any real illusion of privacy on Twitter, but you don't see me posting pictures of wild parties on twitpic (or Facebook, really). All I know is that a lot of people put their phone number, address, job title, etc. on Facebook, and if we assume most people are idiots when it comes to computers and protecting themselves, it stands to reason that a lot of people are going to have problems unless they pay VERY close attention to who is on their friends list.

Maybe I'll just remove every single bit of pertinent information about myself from Facebook. You won't get to know who I'm dating, won't get to know my favorite quotes, and won't know where I work. I'll remove all links to my outside websites except maybe the podcast, and forget about tagging me in any more pictures. In fact, I think I'll just keep my pictures elsewhere! You can see my name and my email address, and that will be all.

On the other hand, what if every single person on Facebook shared every single bit of pertinent information with the world? What if we flood the internet with a glut of personal information a la Myspace? Would the incidents of ID theft go up or down? Would there be more underage stalking? More regular stalking? I'm torn here. You've got a company who has all of your info stored on its server space and wants you to share it with everybody, so you react by removing stuff you don't want everyone to see. It's almost like Facebook thinks it can control the info you put online by scaring you into deleting things.

So either I allow them to control what I post online, or I try to find another place for all my friends to plan parties. So far it looks like Facebook wins, because I think I am the only one who loves Google Calendar as much as I do. God I love Google Calendar....