Facebook Returns Stolen Name

Just a quick update for some of you that might have heard that Facebook commandeered a user’s vanity landing page  (/harmon). After much outcry produced by TechCrunch on the issue surrounding the handing over of the landing page url to Harman International, Facebook sent TechCrunch and Harman Bajwa… emails letting them know that the vanity url would be returned to Mr. Bajwa.

It’s interesting that the concern used to be about what the government could take from normal citizens. Now that are whole lives are stored in a few online places (Google accounts, twitter pages, Facebook profiles, etc.) maybe we should be worried about how much of that info is and will continue to be safe? I mean no-one thought in a million years that a bank as big as Washington Mutual would fail… who knew Copeland Sports * would close their doors?… and what about Mervyns, Circuit City, etc? What happens when one of these internet giants starts to falter and in an attempt to survive sells their soul and my info to some other corporate conglomerate with a looser definition of privacy in their policy?

* the Copeland Sports reference is just a little shout out to the nationwide sporting goods store I worked at while in college all the way through the closing of the doors. RIP Copeland Sports.