I don't understand why people are jumping back in the band-wagon. Facebook has shown its intention, clearly. Reverting back is only a temporary solution.
What were their intentions... to trick people with their security settings? Perhaps they just didn't take enough time to plan out the settings the first time around.
You really think a huge company full of lawyers and an entire office in DC dedicated to privacy & policy messed up because they were in a hurry? Trust me, there's not a single setting in the old design that wasn't vetted by a pile of lawyers and policy wonks.
What I don't have to assume is that FaceBook has repeatedly made big privacy-impacting changes without consulting its users. This is the third major overreach/retreat. Three incidents is enough to realize that taking privacy seriously is not part of the company's DNA.
Their intentions are to make butt load of money. The only way they can do it is by selling users data one way or another. One of the main reasons I user facebook is to keep in touch with my friends and know what they are doing without having to do much. Big announcements or happenings are also passed on through facebook, nowadays, which is fine. However, this information is just between friends. Unless, they somehow make most of this information public, I dont see a way for them to make loads of money. They have a funding of $716M and a lot of it at $12B evaluation. What else are they going to do?
Facebook doesn't require you to make your data public to target ads to you. Advertisers don't ever see your actual data -- they target to demographics, and Facebook acts as the intermediary, displaying those ads to the appropriate users. Here's a related FAQ: http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=privacyupdate
So, are you saying that instant personalization was adding no value to their revenues? Making status updates public was in no-way an answer to twitter and generate a real-time news source? Linking interests to direct pages otherwise blank pages was making them no money? I know you work for FB, and it seems a lot of fb employees are following this thread and trying to generate a positive vibe. I am not against FB, but the way they have done things lately, it is almost impossible for me to believe that they wont do it again. I was one of those people who used to post things without thinking much on fb, and now I have completely stopped. Hopefully, every user will understand and would start treating it as a public forum.
Of course the things you're suggesting will allow Facebook to add features to the product, and indirectly perhaps add revenue.
That is very different from this: "The only way they can do it is by selling users data one way or another.". People often claim that Facebook wants to "sell" your data to advertisers, and I'm simply saying that claim is wrong.
(I've never been secretive about the fact that I worked at Facebook, it's on my profile. )
The problem here is that FB makes more money by making user profiles more public. They have shown it already. And, I doubt you will disagree with me on this fact.
Now, you can argue that making private information public to generate revenues is not selling, however, IMO, it is, given the fact that they started out as a completely private social network.