Do you tell Facebook everything?

You may have heard today that ‘noted’ blogger Robert Scoble has had his Facebook account suspended because he was – in their eyes – scraping data from the site. The fact that he was using a tool to take data that he already had on his profile and port it to other social network environments is beside the point, they say. He was violating the terms of service and his account is forfeit.

I could care less about whether Scoble gets to have his Facebook account back (I imagine he will, because Facebook can’t afford to lose any more credibility with their audience), but what all the various arguments back and forth have highlighted to me is the vast amount of data that is sitting on Facebook; Scoble may have only been harvesting data he already had access to, but what about the less scrupulous user? And if you voluntarily put all that information online, is it still yours?

When you think about the millions of users that Facebook has – what is it? 50 million now? – and the think about the information that each of them puts up, the possibilities for identity theft are frightening. Think about your own Facebook account – how much data do you display? And just how safe do you think it is?

I’ve used Facebook for quite a few months and I’ve looked at I don’t know how many profiles – a large number are public, so you can browse at your leisure. People put up their names (obviously), age, gender, where they work, where they went to school, the music, films and books they like, their partner and all their friends. They put their contact details – email, phone, IM, you name it. I’m surprised they’re not putting up their Social Security number and their credit card details. They put up photos of themselves, their families, their children. They make announcements like when they’re going on holiday, when they’re moving house. Basically, they put up almost their entire lives.

All nicely packaged for someone to come along and steal.

How much information do you think it really takes for someone to commit identity theft? How about your name, your date of birth and the town you live in. That could be enough – they can wing the rest – but Facebook users give them so much more without a thought.

But you’re probably thinking “Ah, but all of my data is set just for my friends to view, and my profile is restricted not public”. Which is where tools like the Scoble was using come in; how much effort do you think it really takes for a determined enough person to write a tool that will (or can, there are probably ones out there already) breach Facebook’s security. And with 50 million users up for grabs, they will be determined. After all, if they got 50c per name, that’s a lot of zero’s…

And even if Facebook is 100% secure and people can only scrape data that is made public, what about Facebook themselves? They got into hot water recently because of their Beacon program – which would have allowed “specially chosen” partners to access some of your data, so they could “tailor” your online shopping experience accordingly. A system that was going to be opt-out became opt-in and now seems to have been dropped because of the public outcry.

But think about it; Facebook is a company. Companies exist to make money. Companies make money from exploitation of their assets. What is Facebook’s biggest asset? Your data. If hackers and scrapers can’t come in and steal it, Facebook themselves have shown they are perfectly happy to sell it; are you OK with that? Because by putting your data on their service, that’s what you’re saying. Think about it a bit, and then go check out your Facebook account.

For myself, I’ve had a bit of a spring-clean of my Facebook account. I haven’t deleted it completely, but it’s a lot trimmer than it was – not that it was fat with information to begin with and I won’t be updating it anywhere near as much as I used to.