At the D8 conference this evening, Steve Jobs told Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg his view on privacy, as Facebook has come under intense scrutiny over the past month. Steve Jobs offered his opinion on how to approach privacy which was refreshingly clear, something the audience agreed as they applauded his comments.

Jobs stated, “Privacy means people know what they are signing up for in plain English. Some people want to share more data. Ask them. Ask them every time. Let them know precisely what you are going to do with their data.” While it wasn’t directed at Facebook specifically, the comment contrasts Facebook’s position with their “Instant Personalization” which doesn’t alert users ahead of time what’s taking place with their data.

As we’ve reiterated over the past month, most users may not care about what information is being shared but that doesn’t mean it’s justified and it’s setting a precedent which could impact other decisions made within and outside Facebook in the future. In other words, Facebook needs to fix their instant personalization program to be opt-in. As Steve Jobs acknowledges, it’s not the job of technology companies to force users to be more open, instead you can ask them. It’s as simple as that.

Yesterday was marked “Quit Facebook Day” thanks to a website which called on users to protest against the company for violating users’ trust and not providing sufficient privacy controls. The day came and went and the vast majority of users logged in to the site rather than deleting their accounts. While we can’t say that it wasn’t expected, the movement didn’t go unnoticed by mainstream media who took every opportunity to cover the event.

The timing of the “Quit Facebook Day” was what helped drive the media attention. For the past month Facebook has been the subject of intense scrutiny by the media, and even folks on Capital Hill who would like the company to be more transparent with their privacy system. Last week Facebook responded and so far the privacy advocates have been relatively silent.

For those anticipating some sort of privacy scandal climax that would result in a mass exodus or legislation of online privacy rights, you will have to wait. Instead, Facebook is slowly rolling out their new privacy settings, and many are waiting to see what the impact is. One thing is clear: despite the media backlash against Facebook’s privacy policies and methods of making changes, most users are willing to stay on the site, even with Facebook’s controversial products, like “Instant Personalization”, and open settings.

For now, the “Quit Facebook Day” movement appears to have been insignificant, but there is at least one sign that some users have turned away from the site. Alexa, a site which monitors internet traffic around the globe, shows a slight decline in traffic to Facebook over the past two weeks. Such short-term trends are not out of the ordinary however, as Facebook has seen such shifts in the past.

For those who are looking for more ominous signs that users are heading for the exits en masse, you’ll have to wait as yesterday was not the day the mass exodus took place.

Around the world, countries hold holidays to honor the men and women who defend them. Today is one such holiday in the U.S., Memorial Day, so we're profiling service members and their families as part of our "Your Stories" series on different ways people use Facebook. Submit your story to us and we'll consider featuring it in future posts.

Active Duty

The walls of 21-year-old Charles Pergament's room are lined corner to corner with photographs of family and friends. This is no college dorm, though; it's Charles' living quarters in Al-Basrah, Iraq, where he is stationed as a transportation movement specialist with the 840th Transportation Battalion. The photos are among the dozens he receives from his wife, Kristin, who prints them out from friends' Facebook profiles and includes them in care packages to Charles.

Charles and Kristin were married on Dec. 28, 2009, but didn't have much time to enjoy wedded bliss. Only a few weeks later, his unit was deployed to Iraq to assist with the draw-down operation. To bridge the gap formed by thousands of miles, the young couple keeps in touch through Facebook Chat and Inbox messages. Kristin says she misses her husband every day, but "our communication has made this deployment a little easier."

In addition to connecting with his wife, family and friends, Charles also has found Facebook to be helpful while he's overseas.

"A team of mine got separated on a base in Iraq," wrote Charles in an email. "I went to a (military-operated) cafe, hopped on Facebook, and saw (that) my squad leader was online. I messaged him our location, and within 10 minutes we were regrouped."

A Gold Star Wife

While many military families use Facebook to communicate with their loved ones abroad, others turn to it as a source of support after the loss of a soldier. Katie Hubbard, the 26-year old widow to Command Sgt. Maj. James W. Hubbard Jr., has benefited greatly from the comfort she has received from Facebook friends since her husband's death.

James was an active military serviceman from October 1972 to September 1980, then he joined the Army Reserves. After a deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, James returned home in 2005, when he met Katie. The pair were married in February 2007, before James was briefly deployed again to Kosovo. Soon after returning stateside, he was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia that apparently stemmed from uranium exposure during his tour of duty in Iraq. Sadly, despite immediate treatment, James passed away on May 21, 2009.

Among the friends Katie connects with on Facebook are fellow Gold Star Wives, the widows of deceased military members. Though she has never met many of the women face-to-face, their shared grief builds a trusting and understanding community. Katie cites one friend in particular, Glenda, as an inspirational figure. Though widowed long ago when her husband died in the Vietnam War, Glenda has helped Katie find support.

"I've learned a lot from our conversations," says Katie, "and even though we were widowed almost 41 years apart and in different circumstances, the grief is so similar."

Katie and Glenda plan to meet for the first time this weekend, when they will commemorate Memorial Day with a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Band of Brothers

Luis Rodriguez is immensely proud of his older brother, Shak Wak. A highly decorated first sergeant, Shak has seen 18 years of near constant combat, first with the U.S. Marines and now with the U.S. Army. He is, as Luis wrote, "a soldier's soldier." Shak is currently on his fifth tour of duty in Iraq, but unlike previous deployments, this is the first he has undertaken with an important tool: a Facebook account.

Luis convinced his brother to sign up on Facebook so they could communicate more easily while he is overseas. Now, they share pictures and videos of family events to keep Shak in touch with home.

Shak is careful to follow the military's security rules, known as OPSEC guidelines, so he doesn't share many details, but Luis says the little updates mean the world to him and his family. Luis particularly loves getting real-time information from his brother on Facebook Chat.

"In that instant, I know he is OK, back at the (base) and probably getting some rest and some food," Luis said.

Luis, a writer, fondly remembers crafting a poem dedicated to Shak, then posting it as a note on Facebook and tagging his brother.

"Within hours, he had read and responded to it," Luis recalled. "Knowing that I can reach out and speak to him like that is priceless."


Sara, an intern on the communications team, is so grateful to all the men and women serving her country.

A new software package, promising to enable you to reach hundreds of thousands of people on Facebook, will take your money in exchange for software which will spam the hell out of Facebook. While we haven’t purchased the application, it’s clearly against Facebook’s terms and is probably not the best way to build a “viral marketing” campaign. The application could also be the source of much of the Facebook Page spamming that users have been reporting to us in recent days.

Some of the key features of Facebook Wizard is the following:

• Automatically add friends at random
• Spam Facebook Pages by automatically liking and commenting on updates
• Avoid being blocked by Facebook’s captcha via a “decaptcha” feature
• Proxy support to hide detection from Facebook’s automated spam detectors

So buy this program and get ready to go viral! Not! My guess is that Facebook will have this shut down in a matter of days. While the application could possibly work, this is definitely not the way to go about building a marketing campaign. If you want to try out blasting your friends (and their friends) with a bunch of spam messages, go download the Facebook Wizard for a mere $95. It’s a great way to quickly throw some money out the window!

If the latest statistics from Google are accurate, Facebook’s 540 million unique monthly users account for almost 143 page views each month. Facebook also has 8 times as many page views as Yahoo! does each month, although that has been pretty well known for some time now. Below are some other interesting statistics found through Google’s doubleclick ad planner which lists the 1,000 most popular websites.

• Facebook has 7.5 times as many monthly unique visitors as MySpace
• Twitter appears to be doubling in size every six months and is 33 percent larger than MySpace
• Users of Baidu, a Chinese social network, view an average of 117 page views per month
• Facebook has more page views than the next 100 largest websites on the internet combined each month