In my earlier entry, Deactivation Contemplation, I was seriously questioning whether or not I was going to deactivate my Facebook account or not. I ultimately decided not to, for one main reason: Facebook Connect.
Like OpenID, Facebook Connect makes registering and logging into websites much easier. I realized that I had created many accounts using Facebook Connect, and that – at least for now – it would be too time consuming to figure out all of the sites I’d used Facebook Connect on, so I could update my accounts to not use it anymore.
Continuing to use Facebook Connect still doesn’t solve any privacy issues, so what I decided to do was make a change in how I use Facebook, and what information I share.
Since I control what I share, the first step I took was to remove all family photos. Then I removed most of my contact information – keeping just a bare minimum. Finally, I removed all of my interests. That includes favorite movies, shows, etc…
From here on out, I’m going to simply use Facebook for Facebook Connect and for fun, publicly consumable information sharing. I’m still hopeful that my more personal online social interactions will return, but I don’t expect that to happen until open projects like OpenID and Diaspora become a reality.