Personal Information and Privacy

So I had the following conversation with my brother-in-law today on Facebook. He wanted me to add the "Mob Wars" application. In order to add it you have to agree to let it access your personal information. It struck me as invasive and so I got a little bristly.

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join my mob!
9:21pm Andrew

what mob?
9:22pm Jon

on facebook
9:22pm Andrew

I am the mob
9:22pm Jon

did you get it
9:23pm Andrew

erm, dunno
9:23pm Jon

go to home
9:25pm Andrew

hmm, it wants to access my personal information
9:25pm Jon

what?

oh

no wait what?

just add the application is all ya gotta do
9:25pm Andrew

in order to add the application it has to have access to your personal info
9:26pm Jon

yea so?

i have lots of applications
9:26pm Andrew

um...it's your personal info
9:26pm Jon

lol
9:26pm Andrew

maybe I don't want them to have it
9:26pm Jon

its not like personal personal

Andrew

well, yeah it is...it's whatever I have on my page
9:26pm Jon

lol
9:26pm Andrew

where I live, how old I am

name, email address, where I work

I could go on
9:27pm Jon

lol yea thats displayed to you friends its not like people who arent your friends can see it
9:27pm Andrew

I know, but the APPLICATION can see it and so can the developers of that application
9:29pm Jon

lol
9:32pm Jon

so getting on D2?
9:33pm Andrew

Yeah, in a minute...I'm posting our conversation about information privacy on my blog!
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*cough* and here I am blogging about my private conversation between my bro-in-law on a public internet page.

It's a funny world we live in now. Even the simplest of internet applications are asking for, and getting, our most private information with nary a second thought. It's no wonder we're having information leaks all over the place and identity theft is so common. Our information is all over and nobody has a good idea of where it is or how it's being protected.