If you have a Facebook account, you recently were offered the “opportunity” to change your privacy settings. Sounds good.

But what isn’t good is that Facebook pointed you to a “privacy” page where the default settings opened all your data to the world. This is a profound change for a service was created and operated on the underlying assumption that you would share your information only with those you chose. In other words, the default security was privacy and you were given the option of sharing with a broader group than your friends.

As the EFF says:

… the Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook’s users, whether intentionally or inadvertently.

The basic problem is that Facebook is now pushing folks toward total openess for Facebook’s own economic reasons. Facebook is doing this in a way that is misleading.  They have aligned themselves against their users.

Dan Gillmor summarizes the situation very clearly:

Why don’t I feel safe and sound in their benevolent hands? Because although some of the changes they’ve made in their privacy settings are actually helpful, they are suggesting that users share much more of their data and other information, much more widely than ever. Facebook’s extremely smart leaders know perfectly well that the majority of users are likely to accept these suggestions, because most people say yes to whatever the default settings are in any application.

And I wonder whether the Facebook user community will remain loyal as they discover what is going on?

Update: More news via TechCrunch.

Update 2: Jason Calacanis has posted one of the best essays on Facebook’s shameful behavior.