ON THE SHORES OF A MUDDY RIVER

Good to know.

I’m certainly not one of those people who likes to complain that networks like Facebook are ‘omg invading my privacy and stuff,’ since I understand that all such media (Google mail, Myspace, etc.) are not things one needs, has to, or even always ought to have. Moreover, they are run by private companies with narrow, specific priorities of interests (first profit, second ???, third service). But it is always good to know what those priorities are and how they operate lest your for one moment think they have a duty or legal requirement to keep the information you give them secret.

Interesting to me though is the question of what the responsibilities (ethically, not legally) of a company like Facebook ought to be when their service becomes as widely used by as broad a base as it has. It isn’t unlike (in a tangential kind of way) the possesive attitude that World of Warcraft players (also a broad base) have about their accounts, characters, and gear despite, according to the Terms of Service and Blizzard company policy, it all remaining property of the corporation.