Today I logged in and was asked to accept connections to/with employers, schools, and other sites related to my profile (previously identified interests and groups). When I chose not to connect the related information dropped out of my profile, but there’s more going on here.

Since this morning, I’ve seen a lot of Twitter traffic about the issue. There are of course pros and cons. ‘Opening up’ Facebook to track interests across the Internet could prove to be powerful in terms of social networking. It could also result in a significant loss of privacy in terms of what anyone might be able to access about anyone else’s activities, interests, etc.

In an effort to inform, here are several perspectives:

• Time to Reappraise Facebook – Paul Seaman (21^st –century PR Issues)
• What You Should Know about Facebook’s Changes – John Sutter (CNN Tech)
• Facebook’s Plan to Take Over the Web – Farhad Manjoo (Slate)
• Facebook’s Arrogance (Jess Jurick)
• How to Delete Facebook Applications (and Why You Should) – Sarah Perez (Read Write Web)
• The Facebook Backlash Has Begun – Mike Melanson (ReadWriteWeb)
• How to Restore Your Privacy on Facebook – Ryan Tate (lifehacker)

I think my own frustration begins with the changes being an opt-out instead of opt-in situation. Also feeling a little left out. As a user should I have been asked what I thought about it? Perhaps we are all along for the ride.

What do you think? Did you change your privacy settings?

Photo credit: Brenda Starr, Flickr