Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

I thought we had a deal. When I joined Facebook a few years ago you promised me privacy.  When I first arrived on the scene I could keep my entire profile private, create my own little Facebook world if you will. I liked the fact that every status I ever posted didn’t show up on Google when I searched on my name. I appreciated the fact that I had control over my audience. Now you’ve changed the rules without consulting me and I’m not happy about it.

When I originally clicked Accept on your privacy policy when I joined Facebook, it said nothing about sharing my personal information on Facebook pages and partner websites outside of Facebook. You call this new feature “Instant Personalization.” I call it a complete violation of my privacy.

You falsely give the impression that I actually have the ability to opt out of this program, yet you continue to force me into the program even though I’ve opted out. As you can see by my Privacy settings I have unchecked the box that allows you to take my private wall postings and publicly display them on your partner websites:

When I try to opt out of your Instant Personalization program you threaten to share my information via my friends anyway!

I have opted out of this Instant Personalization program yet you continue to threaten me if I don’t opt in. When you pop up a dialog that asks me if I’d like to link to 37 other pages on Facebook, and I refuse, you threaten to wipe out the personal information from my profile.

So, unless I bow to your wishes you will basically empty my profile of all of the information that I originally chose to post. If I link to the 37 pages you suggest, you will replace all of the personal information I have posted in my profile with garbage that you think I should have on my profile, based on your data mining of my status updates and current profile information.

This is not what I signed up for Mr. Zuckerberg. I am a public persona, and even I am appalled by your lack of respect for my privacy. If you Google my name you will find 20 pages worth of links to information on me. This is the information I want you to find. There’s a difference.

I hope your pilot program crashes and burns.

Sincerely,

Kelly Jo Horton

Social Networker