I logged onto Facebook today and to my utter horror I was automatically forced to page to accept changes to my privacy settings. These privacy settings had defaulted to new settings to replace my existing "secure" settings, which are configured to protect my personal information from strangers.
Now I wasn't caught out by this cheap stunt, but I fear many people who had previously made the effort to configure their Facebook acccounts to only share their private information with friends they know, may of been tricked.
I only blogged about how to configure Facebook securely a couple of weeks ago, http://blog.itsecurityexpert.co.uk/2009/11/child-facebook-safety.html My blog posting was aimed at protecting children using Facebook, and I fear this forced privacy settings change will have caught out many children, as I find children tend to have a just click and not read properly approach when using the Internet. Facebook are forcing this privacy change screen on all their users, a user cannot use any element of Facebook until they click the "Save Settings" button.
I just think this is an utter disgrace and crime against privacy, it's about time social networking sites are regulated to ensure they understand their responsibility in protecting their customer's personal information, rather than profiteering as much as they can out it. The simple reason why Facebook want their users to share their private information more, is to generate more traffic to their site, which in turn leads to more advertising revenue. Facebook should be doing the complete opposite and suggesting default privacy settings to share only with friends.
Make no mistake, the "Friend of a Friend" setting means "Strangers" will be accessing your personal information and your family photos, so make sure you are not deceived by Facebook's darn right reckless approach to protecting your personal information.
