Facebook: In Addition...

I have had wonderfully mixed reactions to my decision to leave Facebook and let me assure both critics and supporters that I am in no way naive enough to believe or promote the idea that getting off of Facebook erases your cyber fingerprint. I believe I used the phrase “minimizing your cyber fingerprint on a global level”. If erasing my cyber fingerprint were the motive behind my decision, then I would not have started a blog using Google, because Google is the forerunner in the field of data mining. Let’s keep it real folks: the moment we log on to the Internet, we are being tracked and stored by someone, somewhere.

The problem I have with the Facebook Privacy Policy can be found after their “In addition” phrase nestled in the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities section with regard to information ownership. The following is taken directly from their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities:

How To Get Off Of Facebook

It is not a matter of having something to hide. It is a matter of having much to protect.

Do you ever procrastinate? I do. In fact the problem on which I am currently spending so much time should have been taken care of last December. I was going to remove myself from the social network known as Facebook. I did not do that in December. So, not only am I now paying the consequence of putting that task off, but I am also torturing myself wondering how much further along I would be had I spent the last four months of life in forward motion rather than stagnancy. I think the worst consequence of procrastination is the little slice of life that gets lost on whatever it is we choose to delay. However, this post is not about procrastination.

This post is about freeing yourself from the electronic leash known as social networking, particularly Facebook.

The fire was finally lit for me to remove my presence from Facebook after the most recent changes (April 2010) in Facebook’s Privacy Policy. I use the term “privacy” loosely in reference to Facebook because their privacy policy is becoming wholly the opposite. As I began looking into the global, long-term consequences of my continuing to allow Facebook to pass along my personal information at their will, I learned that the ramifications of doing so are very disturbing. I am finally in the process of making that change. I say process because I have made some wonderful connections on Facebook and I do not want to lose them. So, I am gathering their contact information and placing it in a personal database before deleting myself entirely.