How Facebook is sharing our secrets with the whole world

What's happened is that Facebook's latest tweak to its default privacy settings has sparked a firestorm. Four US senators have voiced their concern. Fifteen privacy groups have filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission. On this side of the Atlantic, the EU's data protection working party has written to Facebook, saying recent changes that made previously private information publicly viewable by default were "unacceptable". And many online commentators, influential and otherwise, have joined the fray.

Privacy on Facebook has been steadily, inexorably eroding. To track the erosion, see the timeline posted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or a sobering animation created by IBM researcher Matt McKeon. What we're looking at is the implementation of a corporate strategy designed to maximise return for Facebook's owners.