If you’ve logged in to Facebook since 9 December, you’ll have been introduced to the new Facebook privacy settings. As with Beacon, these new settings have outraged Facebook users and rights groups. Again, Facebook has relented, retracting the all (Google-wide) or nothing (not even your Facebook friends can see) visibility of friends lists.

The Facebook blog is a hotbed for complaints. As Peter ‘mos Undef’ Mann observed, since the new settings were rolled out, Facebook users have had to navigate six distinct versions of what aspects of our friends lists we can protect and how to set those restrictions.

Well Facebook, you fooled me once with Beacon, and now you’ve fooled me twice with your new privacy settings. Please don’t fool me again – make the profit you’re entitled to, just don’t invade my privacy or my friends’ privacy to do so.

From using the MyWebDNA extension, you know that you don’t have to sacrifice privacy for personalization. Unfortunately Facebook didn’t know this when they introduced Beacon.

Beacon, which shared sensitive data across users’ Facebook profiles, has been a disaster from the start, causing outrage over incidents like broadcasting the price paid for an engagement ring — before the ring had been presented. In response to the widespread backlash, (the “How dare you betray me?” response we’ve detailed in previous posts) Facebook has had to backpedal dramatically. First they switched from case-by-case opt-out to permanent opt-out, then to opt-in only, and finally they canceled the program altogether.

Facebook still doesn’t get it; they don’t have to invade your privacy to deliver ads which are meant for you. Until Facebook learns that they can give you what you want without tracking you, they are under-serving you.