The security firm Sophos surveyed 4000 Facebook users about the new Timeline feature, which everyone on Facebook is getting whether they like it or not. Turns out not very many people like it, fewer than eight percent. Another eight percent said they’d probably get used to it. Those are the people. That combined 16 percent is a pretty low figure to start out the mandatory program. Meanwhile, 51 percent said that the feature worried them.
TG Daily quotes Sophos’s Graham Cluley:
“Facebook is encouraging users to enter even more personal details about themselves and their life experiences, and making it simpler for others to view the information,” he says.
“But might this not also make it even easier for identity thieves to put together a profile about an individual, discover the name of their first pet, and so forth? That’s all information which could be put to a nefarious use.”
Meanwhile, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is calling for an FTC investigation of Timeline and calling for the feature to be opt-in instead of compulsory.
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