Oh, Snap, Guys! Facebook Keeps Your Private Data Private

It seems that I’m finding more and more people that are complaining about Facebook not being a truly “open” platform because it doesn’t let your information out. By keeping all of your data private, and within their system, they aren’t truly open. Or so the theory goes. I’ve written before on what I think about that. I’m not talking just about whether or not we can call it open, though. I’m talking about people complaining that user’s data is kept inside the system. I’m willing to admit that I might be missing something here, but to me, this sounds like the stupidest complaint I’ve ever heard about Facebook. I am baffled at why people would be upset that a company keeps your information so private. Isn’t privacy a big topic right now? Isn’t a company that keeps all your data under tight lock and key a good thing? Facebook isn’t selling this information, they aren’t letting people just gather all this information to use for their own purposes, they are just keeping everything locked up. I don’t want Google to be indexing my Facebook page. I don’t want someone to be able to download all of my data in a convenient Excel file. I should probably point out that this “closed” system they have didn’t use to exist. There was a time where you could click a button and download everything. I actually have a file with about 41,000 people’s contact info in it that I got years ago. It was just a simple export from Facebook. Tell me, do you really want them to go back to that? I’m perfectly happy with Facebook keeping my data behind closed doors, and I’m willing to bet that nearly all of its users feel the same way. I think that the vocal people complaining are definitely the minority view, but it concerns me that they are so vocal. The very people generating all of the buzz for Facebook are also the ones that are saying this. So please, someone explain to me why this would be a good thing for everyone. Either that, or stop complaining about it, and start complementing Facebook for keeping my stuff private.