Facebook means not being able to control privacy settings
Although reluctant, I was finally browbeaten by friends to set up a facebook account. I must admit that it was nice to be able to find and communicate with friends from college, from my home town, from my church and the like. Facebook, however makes privacy a running rearguard action. As with my ZDnet colleague, Jason Perlow (see I'm Sorry, But I Had to Kill You.), I've found that "friends" seem to accumulate even if I didn't agree to be friends.
Facebook keeps scanning my friends list, their friend list and, it appears, even their friend list and recommending friends. On more than one ocassion, I've accidentally accepted these recommendations from my smartphone not knowing that I brushed against "accept" button. I've found that I have to review my friends list (a well hidden function) to "unfriend" these connections. I'm sure that I've offended people right and left.
Although I did my best to make sure that private information stayed private, games "friends" were playing kept appearing on my daily information feed. I got rid of them as soon as I first saw them.
Facebook constantly is changing the privacy rules and I'm forced to hack through the jungle of their well-hidden privacy controls to prune out new types of permissions Facebook as recently added. I have no idea how much of my personal information was released before I learned of a new angle the company has developed to give my information to others.
Do you have this problem too?