More openness isn’t always best

In an attempt to horn in on the love developers are heaping on Twitter, Facebook has introduced the new Open Stream API, which lets third party applications display your Facebook news stream. To their credit, Facebook has addressed privacy controls up front.

Consistent with our previous steps toward greater openness, we believe users must have full control and choice and that’s exactly how we’ve designed Facebook Platform and the Open Stream API. All Facebook Platform terms governing data use apply and an application or Facebook Connect site can only access a user’s view of the stream if the user gives the application permission.

A tremendous amount of personal information is being poured into Facebook, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks  that will accelerate.

“I would expect that next year, people will share twice as much information as they share this year, and next year, they will be sharing twice as much as they did the year before,” he said. “That means that people are using Facebook, and the applications and the ecosystem, more and more.”

TheNextWeb gets right to the point.

There’s an enormous difference between Facebook and Twitter which Facebook appears yet to realise, or has simply forgotten. Facebook stores an incredible amount of information from peoples daily lives, including media, personal and contact information. Whenever any of this changes, it appears on your friends news streams BY DEFAULT.

It’s likely that most Facebook users don’t realize that they can change their privacy settings and won’t immediately recognize that their information can now flow out of Facebook without their explicit consent.

Zee predicts a basklash. I think he’s right.

Bonus: 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know