Mark Zuckerberg has made billions off of basically demanding you tell the world about your crotch itching, and has been busted repeatedly for crapping all over user privacy. In fact, Facebook is one of the most unethical social networks out there, and people mostly only stay on it because A) their friends are all on it and B) it’s still way better than either Friendster or MySpace.

Now Zuckerberg, while dealing with an overdramatic movie that makes him look like a huge douche, is complaining that one of the multiple frivolous lawsuits that he’s got to deal with (you don’t make a few billion without somebody deciding they can get a piece with the right lawyer) is violating his privacy.

At root is a suit by one Paul Ceglia. Ceglia is claiming he’s got a contract with Zuckerberg that gives him 84% of Facebook. How, precisely, a guy who runs a wood-pellet business five hours away from where Zuckerberg lived would be involved, let alone why Zuckerberg would sign a contract giving him 84% of Facebook, is something Ceglia hasn’t bothered to explain in public yet, but we’re betting it’s got something to do with Ceglia being full of crap. This feeling is only intensified by Ceglia’s legal moves, which are basically designed to inconvenience and embarrass Zuckerberg. He’s trying to keep the trial in New York state courts while Zuckerberg is trying to relocate it to federal court (i.e. they’re fighting over who has to get on a lot of airplanes), and Ceglia is trying to force Zuckerberg to turn over personal details. Zuckerberg, of course, has suddenly become a profound advocate of personal privacy.

On the other hand, screw him, he’s worth $4 billion and he’ll win this, so let’s all point and laugh at the rich hypocrite played by Jesse Eisenberg. You know, the guy they get when Michael Cera turns you down.

[ via Slate ]

Facebook is now rolling out the changes to users’ default privacy settings (more on that here).  Some people (myself included) don’t like what Facebook now considers “publicly available information”: your friends list, name, profile picture, current city, gender, networks, and all the pages of which you are a fan.  Also, now when a friend of yours adds an app, that app can access your publicly available information, even though it was your friend, not you, who downloaded that app.  Some people are going so far as to ask if this is Facebook’s “Microsoft moment“.  It didn’t take long for at least one person to get burned by the changes.  He just happens to be one of the founders of Facebook as well:

As a result of a new policy that by default makes users’ profiles, photos and friends lists available on the web, almost 300 personal photos of founder Mark Zuckerberg became publicly available [...]
[Kashmir] Hill reported that while Zuckerberg has in the past offered very limited access to his Facebook information, his profile is now “uber-public.” Hill reported: “I can see his wall, his photo albums, and his events calendar. Zuckerberg recently became a fan of Taylor Swift, uploaded graphic photos of The Great Goat Roast of 2009 three months ago, and plans to attend the Facebook holiday party on Friday night. I can even tell you where it’s going to be held.” [Yahoo]

Yeah, well, I can tell you what kind of underwear he likes and what shampoo he uses (commando and Prell).   I just wish he’d leave the light on when he’s sleeping.  These night vision goggles give me a headache.