Face it! We like our privacy

All over the web right now are the discussions about Facebook’s privacy settings. For me it is sad to see, that more and more the privacy settings are being constrained. I don’t want to have all my details visible to everyone. But step by step Facebook is changing the settings and even overwriting existing settings, so that – surprise surprise – suddenly information are available to all Facebook users. I had to change my settings several times already in order to keep my things as private as possible. Very interesting to see in this context is the development of the standard settings, shown at The evolution of privacy on Facebook (EN). Sarcastically Gizmodo.com envisions the future settings of Facebook.
Unfortunately I did not find a fitting alternative yet. Is there really no one out there that wants to create a community without thinking of selling all available information? There is Kaioo, a network that proposes that their users can co-decide about changes made. But compared to the interface of Facebook it is no competition yet and in my circle of friends it did not became accepted anyways. Dan Yoder suggests that we should use separate applications like Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and so on. Of course, this will work, but personally I prefer to have one place to go to. And further, a social network only makes sense if there are many people you know, so that you can connect with them. But how to convince such a crowd to change network and make sure that everyone is on the same networks you are?
Many questions and no real solutions yet. Nevertheless, we could all think about making a statement by quitting Facebook and showing them that we don’t like the way they make business with our information.

Further interesting articles:
Das Netzwerk macht jetzt ernst (DE)
Facebook’s eroding Privacy Policy – A timeline (EN)
Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook (EN)
More reasons why you still should quit Facebook (EN)
How to permanently delete your account (EN)