Guy W. Farmer: Facebook and the loss of privacy

I have a couple of questions for you computer nerds this morning: Why do thousands of otherwise sane Nevadans post details of their private lives on the Internet? Are that many people really interested in what someone else had for breakfast?

For the record, I had corn flakes and cinnamon toast. So what? And I don't really care what you or your cat had for breakfast. Sorry about that. Time magazine recently published a cover story on the privacy implications of Facebook, which has 500 million members worldwide. That's all well and good, but more than a few of those folks are Internet predators who target senior citizens and/or children. That's my main concern.

A close friend of mine recently joined Facebook in order to play online Scrabble with her adult daughters. That's a healthy activity and a good way to stay in touch with friends and family. She tells me that it's easy to sign up for Facebook; you simply post a personal profile and you're in. OK, what next?

She's already had several inquiries from people who want to be her "cyber-friends." She knows some of them but others are complete strangers. So why do they want to be her friends? And who are these people? No one knows.

According to Time, Facebook and its 26-year-old founder, Mark Zuckerberg, have joined the ranks of Internet royalty along with Google and Microsoft. Time observes that "Facebook makes us smile, shudder, squeeze into photographs so we can see ourselves online later (and) fret when no one responds to our witty remarks."

Well, that's harmless enough, except that too many people are now living their lives online rather than interacting with real live friends, which changes the nature of our society.

"The willingness of Facebook users to share and overshare ... is critical to its success," Time opines. The only problem is that Facebook is a business "and there's a tremendous business opportunity around Facebook's member data." So the more information you share on Facebook, "the more data it's able to pool for advertisers," which is a scary thought.

Although Facebook now has a privacy policy that allows users to protect their data in ways that were previously difficult or impossible, the company still shares personal data with third-party "applications" like games and quizzes. In April the privacy problem was exacerbated by Facebook's new "Instant Personaliz-ation" program, which allows some websites to access your information without your permission.

That's why I won't be joining Facebook. In my opinion, the constitutional right to privacy is well worth protecting and I intend to do my part to protect it.

• Guy W. Farmer, of Carson City, is a certified techno-phobe.