Social one-upmanship

Still, I’m not canceling my Facebook account; with 800 million users, that’s where the action is. But I’m becoming more wary about how I use it.

Facebook’s new Timeline feature is the upgrade that has drawn the most attention, and for good reason: It is pretty slick. Timeline will replace the current profile page for all Facebook users tomorrow. The page features an attractive two-column layout, showing your various postings and responses from friends. True to its name, there’s a list of years running down the right side of the screen. I joined Facebook in 2006, and my Timeline includes every year since.

Click on, say, 2009, and there’s all my Facebook activities for that year: the people I friended, the groups I joined, the items I posted. In addition, Timeline features significant years that you mention in your Facebook profile, such as the year of your birth, your graduation from college, or your wedding anniversary. And it gives you tools to add more information about significant events, like vacations, divorces, visits to the hospital. It’s a pleasant, user-friendly way to relive the past.

Yet I don’t want anybody to see my Timeline, except me. Too bad. It’s viewable by others, with some limitations. You can make all new postings private, or limit who can see them. You can remove individual posts one at a time. But if you want to conceal all your posts from 2008, forget it. You can block them from public view, but your friends will still be able to read them.

That’s no comfort: Like many people, I have hundreds of Facebook “friends’’ I barely know. Some might even be crooks, and the information in Timeline would be very useful in planning a burglary or identity theft. If Timeline can not be made completely private, users should be able to limit access to close friends or family members only. It is a simple tweak that would make the Timeline safer.

The other hot-button upgrade is data sharing between Facebook and a host of major online services. Already, there are many sites where you can sign in directly through Facebook. Now some of these sites will report back to Facebook about your activities.