I know everything about you

Bob was heading to his favorite bar the other day when a man approached him and said: ?Hey Bob, how is Carla doing???Do I know you? And how come you know my wife?? Bob replied. ?It's me. Mike! Our friend Tom told me, you went to London last weekend??The conversation went on for quite some time until bob almost believed that this man was his buddy from high school. What Bob did not know, was that this man did not actually know him. He got all this information from Bob's facebook page. (A little rant about privacy) Bob was heading to his favorite bar the other day when a man approached him and said: "Hey Bob, how is Carla doing?" "Do I know you? And how come you know my wife?" Bob replied. "It's me. Mike! Our friend Tom told me, you went to London last weekend?"The conversation went on for quite some time until bob almost believed that this man was his buddy from high school. What Bob did not know, was that this man did not actually know him. He got all this information from Bob's facebook page.

I agree that Bob is a bit naive and that this story was made up. But it is almost frightening how much private information people post on the internet. With facebook, twitter, foursquare and all those other little apps we use daily, we have become used to sharing information. Information, we otherwise might not tell more than a few friends, let alone more than a hundred people.

I get that privacy settings in most social applications can be a bit tricky and some users might not even know what kind of information they are giving away. Do you?

I know a lot of people that are protesting against giving up their privacy to the government by going on the streets against INDECT and other fancy government ideas that headed our way. But in the next moment they are checking in on foursquare, letting everyone know where they are.

The other day a read this post about "Girls Around Me", an app, that lets you find... well... girls around you. All this by just accessing your geo-location and the API of facebook and foursquare. A nice bit of software that bluntly shows what information is out there.

Why do some many people freely give up everything about them? Has the time come where privacy is a value we don't need anymore? I want to your opinion!