Facebook is a datatard shock horror

For those who even now still think Facebook is a benign thing, comes this article:

Facebook fanatics who have covered their profiles on the popular social networking site with silly games and quirky trivia quizzes may be unknowingly giving a host of strangers an intimate peek at their lives.

Those mini-programs, called widgets or applications, allow users to personalize their pages and connect with friends and acquaintances. But they could pose privacy risks. Some security researchers warn that developers of the software have assembled too much information -- home town, schools attended, employment history -- and can use the data in ways that could harm or annoy users.

"Everything requires you to give access to personal information or it forces you to ask your friends to do the same -- it becomes a real nuisance," said David Dixon, 40, an information technology consultant in Columbia who recently deleted most of the applications he had downloaded to his Facebook profile after reading on a blog that developers may have access to his information. "Why does a Sudoku puzzle have to know I have two kids? Why does a postcard need to know where I went to college?"

Not that its just Facebook of course - datamining is the raison d'etre of many a Net business and nearly every social net, especially now that its clear straightforward advertising isn't the route to riches.

But its June 2008 and these sort of articles still hit the front page of Techmeme. This is hardly new news, but it seems we forget things so quickly. Still, its now hitting the Washington Post rather than the Tech Blogosphere. so that must be getting the news out to a wider audience.