There is a growing backlash movement directed at Facebook over their apparent lack of concern about their user’s privacy. People are either not happy about, or not entirely understanding, what the new changes mean. Specially, the part about how by default, “everything” is social.

Facebook’s most recent changes to their privacy policy are just another milestone in their efforts towards world domination. I do not agree, nor do I believe the assertion that Facebook is merely matching what their user base is demanding.

I just have a hard time believing that users/ members of the site are clamoring to have all of their data disseminated to infinity and beyond for advertising and other purposes. I could be wrong about that though.

Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, at least in the early days of the website, demonstrated that he didn’t much care for the site user’s privacy. VentureBeat has an excerpt from an IM conversation attributed to a then 19 year old Zuckerberg in which he says:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don’t know why.

Zuck: They “trust me”

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

VentureBeat 05/13/2010

So, apparently, since we trust Facebook with our information, we’re all “Dumb.” Sure, we can write these statements off as something that a teenager would say/ do. Surely, the more mature Zuckerberg wouldn’t feel that same way, right? I’m not entirely convinced that there’s been a complete change of heart.

Having said that, I want to point you to the instructions on how to permanently delete your profile. I’m not talking about deactivating your account, which basically means that FB can retain all your information, I’m talking delete, as in wipe out of the records and delete them from the Facebook servers.

I hope it deletes all the information, since you can’t really be sure that anything is ever really deleted online.

If you’re still on the fence and need more motivation for deleting your account, here are a couple of articles that go into more detail about how to delete your profile:

• CNN: Some quitting Facebook as privacy concerns escalate
• Gizmodo: Top 10 reasons you should quite Facebook

I haven’t deleted my profile yet, but I have removed and figured out how to lock it down as much as possible. Although having read why Leo Laporte says in that CNN article, I may need to consider deleting the profile in order to keep my other family members from doing something potentially bad.

Photo Credit: MaxB