off the list

Want your personal info available on-line, for all eternity?

Then put down your drool cup and join Facebook.

The NY Times reported Monday that Facebookers have found it virtually impossible to completely liberate their info nuggets from FB’s grasp.

Gulp.

A while back, a friend suggested I set up an FB page — which I did, then promptly forgot about.

Big Gulp.

Click. User name. Password. Enter. There I was — part of FB’s hive mind.

And so was my real date of birth. And the town where I live. And where I went to college.

Double Big Gulp.

Here I was, Mr. “Off The List”, and I had blindly offered details of my life in pursuit of a connection or twelve.

On the upside, FB does not require a terrestrial address to open an account — so, in theory, my lapse in security would not result in a tidal wave of junk mail.

On the downside, FB asks for (and receives) such personal details as:

• date of birth
• current city
• email
• high school
• college
• employer

Couple those with the “tell me all about yourself” nature of FB and you can just hear the Data Miners backing up their trucks right now.

See FB, MySpace, and the rest of the ‘Sters are in business to connect people of like minds.

A business that enables advertisers and marketers to pitch their products to those same like minded people.

But without a reasonable means to opt out, smart people like you (and now me) will begin to lie.

About who they are and what they love.

Pretty soon, those FB demographics will mean nothing.

And their business will die.

Somewhere in the Amazon, a butterfly just laughed.