Wow, Facebook is getting some press - and not all good (warning: link-happy post ahead).
First, for kicking Scoble off, which split into multiple issues: Scoble breaking the terms of service and getting the appropriate response, Plaxo not testing their scripts, and a broader "Who owns your data? Not you!" which DownloadSquad hit the nail on the head with:
What's really at issue here is, who owns all this crazy social data you're constantly creating? Here's a tip; it's not you. All those clickwrap agreements -- or EULAs, also known as the Terms of Service document you never read -- say that Facebook can pretty much do whatever it wants with whatever data it manages to extort extract from you.
Still happy about the amount of time you spend on the most popular social networking site in the world? Or, rather, are you getting that icky, spine crawling feeling you get when you meet someone who knows just a little too much about you?
Next (and more insidiously, IMHO) Facebook is now using your friends profile pictures in advertising without their consent. It's already hard enough to avoid dumb applications, and now here's advertising disguised as something your friends use or condone. Yeeech.
I enjoy using Facebook. When I stop enjoying it, I'm out (Darren Niemke, an Aussie blogger and smart guy, left recently and his parting Facebook post is worth looking at). I don't plan on investing too much in Facebook, and I realise that if I want to keep anything from Facebook "forever", I'm better off using e-mail, or my personal blog, or my Flickr, or my Dandelife, or whatever.
As a final thought, Rodney Rumford at FaceReviews has a great analogy on Facebook being like a dinner party (summing up what I like about Facebook).
Happy Facebooking!
Tags: facebook, social, rant, privacy