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You may have noticed a wave of spittle flecked screaming directed at Facebook last week, or to be more accurate
another wave of spittle flecked screaming. For a company with such a widely used and enjoyed product, it's remarkable how much hate gets directed at Facebook. As an example, here's a list of all the Facebook groups that I'm currently a member of:
"We hate Facebook's new Redesign." "We hate Facebook's new redesign and still hate their old redesign." "Petition for Facebook to go back to Redesign #4." "Group that swears to ritualistically murder Facebook executives until "is" gets removed from status updates." "People who are ok about this redesign." "People who fucking hate hearing about Farmville" "I enjoy Dairy Queen." The latest round of hate started last week when Facebook explained that, in cooperation with a number of other companies, they would begin embedding Facebook buttons in as many pages as possible across the Internet. If you look carefully (like say anywhere on this page) you'll probably see some examples. Using these new tools you'll be able to signal your approval of pages, products, pictures of obese cats or any other damn thing on the Internet you care to endorse. In theory this will usher in a new era of social networking, where we can share our activities and interests from across the Internet with our friends, who are presumed to give a flying damn. Predictably this has pissed people off immensely, and caused the usual rending of hair and garments, as people lament our ever decreasing privacy. What's the big deal a person might ask rhetorically? Well, all this information about your likes and dislikes and products you enjoy would be controlled by a company who doesn't have any particular interest in your privacy, at least not more than they have an interest in making a crap-dump worth of money. Is it safe to trust Facebook and all these other companies with this information? To find out more about how these privacy concerns could play out in the future, I turned to the phone book, where I got in touch with