Facebook privacy is awful, but users don't care, security expert says

Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and author, decried Facebook's privacy protections during the State of the Net conference. He said that if a person set out to write "crappy privacy" protections, they would come up with Facebook.

"Users complain, there are revolts, there are protests," he said. "But it doesn't matter." Schneier said what he sees as inadequate Facebook privacy is an irrelevant issue because individuals are not deterred by this feature. "They go where their friends are," he said. "The social aspects of the system overcome the privacy concerns for individuals." The situation is different for businesses, which must be concerned about privacy, he said.