The dam has burst me thinks upon Facebook, with the recent announcement about a law suit against them from members who feel their privacy has been compromised.

The points these plaintiffs make vary a little, but essentially hold the common theme that images and information they believed to be theirs to control when uploaded to the social utility proved not to be.

How many times do you see a photo of a Facebook friend that belongs in an Album of someone you don’t know?

Not only can you view this photo of your Friend, but more often than not you’re able to see all the other photos within that album that don’t contain anyone in your network of Friends. Hell, you can even post comments about those photos!

And you see what events your Friends are attending — even though they are not events that you are personally invited to.

I think Facebook epitomises the growing concern of web development in general — there is too much focus on evolution of the offer, and nowhere near enough consideration of the unanticipated ramifications or testing of these new developments prior to implementation.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying Facebook don’t test their website development. In fact I’m sure they do. But how is it possible to conduct fully comprehensive testing of functionality driven by personalisation, when at the very core of the development is the evolution of personalisation itself? How can one company possibly test for all possible personalisation scenarios that exist for 250 million users?

Quite simply, they can’t. And so post-implementation blues rend the air from the countless souls who end up experiencing the full brunt of these changes, inevitability through the sharp and painful personal exposure of their information to other people in a way they never expected. These moments can be significantly life altering and heart breaking. But does Facebook – or any social utility – appreciate the intimacy with which their tools have been woven into the fibres of people’s lives? The extent of the damage that a personalisation tweak here or a share-this-with-a-friend change there can do?

Truly? I think not…

But read it for yourself:  http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/851589/five-users-sue-facebook-for-being-too-popular