Facebook has become a necessary evil instead of a fun way to spend an Internet hour or two. Notice my suddenly empty Interests page? Apparently if you don't allow Facebook to link all those interests to Pages, you can't have any of them at all. What's wrong with Pages, you ask?
Facebook SHARES your information with whoever links to those same Pages.
In fact, Facebook shares your information with whoever it bloody well likes, unless you go to Account --> Privacy Settings and carefully change everything one by one from 'Everyone' seeing it to 'Only Me' or 'Only Friends'. If you don't see the 'Only Me' option (another clever Facebook trick) click Customise.
If you link to Pages, or use an application like Mafia Wars or Farmville, you can kiss your privacy goodbye. Other users of the app, not to mention advertisers trolling the app for people to spam, can pick up your info any time they like. Your real name is usually enough, but heaven forbid they get their hands on your phone number, email address, or even your birthday. :/
Now you know. And you know what Joe says about knowing.
