911: New Facebook Security Worries

On the heels of the change to Facebook privacy two weeks ago, the Northern California chapter of the ACLU has launched a very eye-opening Facebook quiz. I first heard of this through This Week in Tech as Leo Laporte and his crew were taking the quiz themselves. Quite the debate in that episode to decide if the Facebook privacy change (designed to "hep yew" -- by defaulting your privacy wide open if you've never changed it before).

I personally have worried that something skeevy was likely going on with those questionnaire apps on Facebook. The ACLU reveals I wasn't even close.

Here's the 140: Third party questionnaires aren't bound by your Facebook privacy settings, or your friends.

That's right -- your friends.

So in a new twist of the old saw I preach (you're privacy is only as good as your friends, and once you post it, it's always available), if you have friends that love to take these IQ tests and other "games" they are potentially opening a back door to your personal information that you might not thing is public.

The Deseret News has a good story on the ACLU's quiz. Here's a link to Leo's TWIT episode.

Jason Calacanis has is column on the issue entitled Is Facebook Unethical, Clueless or Unlucky.

Those who have followed here and were at the CoSIDA panel on blogging in Tampa, you'll remember Dan Gillmor. He has deleted his Facebook account -- no small gesture by a major player in networked media.

If you've decided you want out, WIRED magazine provides a wiki on how to un-Facebook yourself.