Your life is an open book. If it wasn't before it is now. This doesn't have to do with only the Facebook opengraph initiative and privacy fiasco. There is a new player that is capitalizing on this debacle. It is called youropenbook and it shows you the status of everyone on FB based on a search topic. The results are returned and it doesn't matter if the user is private or not.
There are 3 possible reasons for creating a site like this (as far as I can tell). 1) to monetize it like any other site on the web. 2) because it's funny to exploit the misfortunes of others, a la dirtyphonebook.com. 3) to teach Facebook a lesson.
If you read the about statements on the page, the answer is number 3. They are several Facebook users who are unhappy with their privacy being made public and created the site to educate users on how things work.
This is another case of Facebook's API being used against them in terms of the public spotlight. Will Facebook turn this around? Will people quit on May 31st during the quit Facebook day? Of the over 400 million users on FB, I suspect not enough leave to make a dent. The pundits can cry all they want. Mark Zuckerberg and his team will not stop they intended path of the open web at all costs.
In the meantime, it is refreshing to see people starting websites like these in an effort to illustrate the dangers and complexities of the Facebook privacy settings.
As an example, Christina Berardi has a private profile on Facebook. When looking her up while not signed in I get access to her default photo and some of her friends and a couple of her "likes" but nothing else. OpenBook.org has indexed one of her wall posts using legitimate and legal methods Facebook provides. Here is the quote "Christina Berardi CoD sucks... and the best sex is when you come out with shaking entire body sore as f*** and battle wounds.. damn imma miss that once hes gone lol.. "
Does this seem like something she'd want public? People make the argument that if you say it publicly then expect it to be public. With all the privacy settings FB offers us, we are led to believe that we can control it, yet we can't.
Facebook is going to remain public and open up its data even further. It's up to us to decide if we want to play along or not. In the meantime, I am very happy to report on this group of individuals who have provided us with some real examples of how this is working against our individual privacy. Please see their About page for more information
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Street0 is another service I’ve found for surfacing public Facebook updates:
www.street0.com
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