MSNBS posted a good article on the very serious privacy violations introduced by the latest Facebook feature called "Places" which is enabled by defalult:

“Facebook has provided an official and automated means of sharing someone’s location, where users can now be systematically linked to a specific set of coordinates. These new check-ins could be potentially logged into a database, archived, mined... This is a significant change from just mentioning someone. The concern here is that locational data needs to be treated differently than just an average status update. This is why Facebook has tried to design the system so that, in their terms, no one can be checked in to a location ‘without their explicit permission’. Unfortunately, they fell short.”

Why would Facebook stubbornly keep this spooky feature in its new tool, and enable it by default, over the wide-eyed objections of privacy advocates?

There are two ways to create a fast-growing new business:

1. Create a new product that's so useful, millions of people rush to use it.

2. Have an existing business that millions of people use, and force them to use your new product.

Here, Facebook has picked technique No. 2.