But the reality is that there’s a new generation of consumers who have little or no privacy expectations, and they’re going to prove a rich source of performance data, suggests Scott McAndrew, director of strategy for Tempe, Ariz.-based interactive marketing agency and Facebook APP developer Terralever.

Not only that, as marketers get used to the rich demographic and preference information social networking sites can provide, their expectations will rise ever higher, McAndrew notes. “When they look at Facebook and all of that data, they’ll be looking for it in other mediums,” he says.

Check out Scott’s Online Marketing Performance blog.

With over 67 million active users, Facebook will always be suspect to hackers looking for a way to circumvent its user privacy.  For reasons beyond my comprehension, our generation of Internet users have little trepidation about what information we place in the hands of others.   When Facebook made the decision to open ups its platform they put upon them self a huge risk that someday the breach will be very serious.   Privacy is not a setting, but a caution we should all take before we choose to upload a private photo or other personal information to the 5th most-trafficked website in the world .