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Is Facebook the New Evil Empire?

While initially intrigued by the announcements at the Facebook F8 developer conference a few weeks ago, I've had some time to digest what it means, read some really good blog posts (here, here, and here), and spent some time playing around with the new Graph API.

I've come to the conclusion that while I don't like what they are doing one bit, I do see the genius behind it.  I don't have a problem with them making my information public, as I post a LOT of my data across a wide range of social networking sites like Friendfeed and Twitter. I also share  many of my online accounts on my Google Profile.

Where I think Facebook crossed the line is their strong arm tactics, opt-out strategy, and move to begin monetizing the social graph. They are essentially forcing me to make my profile, interests, and other personal information public by linking to public pages from my profile. If I choose otherwise, they remove those sections from my profile altogether.

I see this as move as a re-incarnation of Beacon, a brilliant monetization and brand-marketing strategy, but completely wrong due to the privacy implications. The average Facebook user is probably not even aware of the fact that simply stating you like something on a public page, in your profile, or "Liking" something in your news feed is an implicit product/brand endorsement.

This new strategy effectively  allows Facebook to take their ad platform to the next level and begin monetizing the social graph through implicit product/brand endorsement. Just because I "Like" a picture or post that contains a product/brand name doesn't mean that I endorse that particular product/brand.

This is not what I intended my personal data to be used for.

With over 400 million users, I certainly understand that Facebook has every right to try and push their agenda, but this time I think they've gone too far. Others seem to agree as evidenced by this post last night on Friendfeed, this post on the EFF site, and this petition just launched by Moveon.org.

As a result of these changes, I'm decided to strip my profile down to a bare minimum for now and may go so far as to deactivate it altogether.

Am I wrong in being concerned about what Facebook is doing with my data and social graph? Let me know what you think in the comments below or join me in the conversation on Friendfeed or Twitter.