A poor pattern of behavior is emerging with Facebook. Thankfully, the only country that is doing anything about it is Canada.

In what appears to be Facebook’s quest to achieve world domination, Facebook revised its privacy policy last week on April 22nd. Facebook’s description of the next version of the platform is described in its blog.

Apparently, Facebook thinks that collecting more user activity would improve the value of its news feed algorithm. Yet, the news feed is of little value to users.

Why? The algorithm is too simplistic to be of any relational value to its audience.

I read the new privacy policy document. Most of the content is straight forward and is identical to its previous policy, except for one part.

This can be summed up as follows:

Your facebook profile information will be shared with Facebook partner sites even when you’re not on the site.

This means clicking ‘Like’ at the partner site will now show up on your facebook profile. Other activities on those partner sites may potentially be reported on your profile, and therefore viewable by all your connected “friends” to see.

Users must opt out of this manually. (This can be accomplished by clicking Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization > and unchecking “Allow”).

The “opt out” technique is an old marketing trick to improve revenue for companies. Companies bet correctly that customers will not take a moment to opt out. Facebook is making the same bet, in an effort to make profile sharing the default on partner sites.

It is my hope that this entry persuades you not to be without any control of your privacy. Your control can be won again when you make the decision on opting in or out of instant personalization.

After all, having choice gives you, seemingly a mere numbered collective in the walled garden of Facebook, power in the form of defining your own individualism.

P.S. I have made my choice. So, if my account is deleted or is inactivated on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg may have pulled a few strings.