Normally, I'm not a privacy zealout. I'm okay with a relative amount of information being available online. I've posted about some potential problems with Blockbuster keeping a record of my movie rental awhile back. That's not really an issue though, since I don't doubt that my phone company keeps a record of my phone calls, etc. It's when that information is shared with people without my permission that it upsets me.

My wife logged into her Facebook account tonight (like she does probably twice a month), only to find that a record of what she had been adding to our Blockbuster Total Access movie queue was being posted for all her friends to see. My first instinct was that she had installed a "Facebook App" by accident, but she didn't have anything installed.

Digging deeper, the Privacy settings page of my own profile has a new area in it called "External Websites." What I saw is the image you see above. What's worse is that the default is to share that information, with a checkbox to not allow it. So my question is, if you don't allow it to be displayed, is Facebook still receiving the data and adding it to their database?

I think I might be deleting my facebook profile soon...

Update: Apparently, this functionality is called Facebook Beacon and it is just that, a beacon for calling attention to yourself...