In the Bits blog Nick Boltin reports on the Facebook bug that exposed private chats to public scrutiny. Facebook claims the bug was only live a few hours, and has shut down chat until the bug can be fixed (perhaps by the time you read this). This can't help Facebooks reputation in the eyes of the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY). Senator Schumer is one of the Senators calling on the FTC to craft privacy guidelines for social networks.
I'm not sure this was really an accident. Yes, I'm being paranoid and cynical, but the Facebook business model is to push for users to make everything public. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a 'live test' to see what kind of reaction results from this "bug".
I agree with you on this. That would be one whopper of an "accident".
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