[tim333]

I would have thought a simple solution to

>I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs, preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages to a massive advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal life events

Is just to have a facebook account with you name and picture and limit to that? Log in in an incognito window if you really don't want them to know what you are browsing?

[vanilla_nut]

A fair point, but I would rather they didn't have knowledge of my social graph at all. The minute I make an account, events, friend connections, private messages, and more all start aggregating there. Then you have to log in to check when you get messages and invites, and they know where you connected from and when you connected -- even more data.

And since Facebook is tracking the phone calls and text messages of at least some of my Android-using friends, there goes even more privacy, this time completely out of my control to keep private. Unfortunately Facebook is pretty good at being "sticky".