After that statement, I spent a ton of words with examples and detailed articles showing that the guy was actually wrong about the very premise that this behavior changed: it didn't, and even that privacy feature was there just one month shy of three years ago. I felt that lead was required, however, as the guy was making statements that things might have changed while he left, and if he really cares about that, I'm sorry, but you really can't trust anyone not to change things while you are gone: if you are going to leave your house unattended for three years, I don't care if it is illegal to break into it, you are downright stupid to not figure some way to get it watched, and maybe you should just sell it or at least rent it out to others in the interim.

>> if you are going to leave your house unattended for three years... you are downright stupid to not figure some way to get it watched

That is completely different.

Number one, a common and legitimate reason to stop using Facebook is apathy. How many sites or services have you abandoned using over the years? Imagine if each one of them took your inactivity as permission to actively impersonate you.

Number two, this isn't like your abandoned house getting broken into by random people. This is like your landlord changing your rent agreement unilaterally to say that she can steal your furniture.

The real difference is that I assume my landlord is basically honest, whereas I long ago dropped that assumption about Facebook. If I heard that Facebook were taking over web cameras and selling indecent images of their users, I would not be surprised.

I see the basic policy of Facebook as "we are going to do anything we want with your account and/or data unless you vigilantly monitor and stop us." Which is why I deleted my account.

I assume they actually kept it and are still selling my data, because that's just the kind of company they are.