"But as Facebook makes it more difficult for users to maintain privacy, its co-founder is taking drastic measures to protect his own. Ironic timing, isn't it?"

Doesn't it seem like we're conflating 2 really different definitions of privacy here? One being online, on facebook, and the other offline, at home. This doesn't seem ironic at all, we're talking about one person's decision to do something that he thinks will make his life better vs. a corporation's decision to try and make more money.

(I'm in no way defending Facebook here, just seems silly to think these 2 things are at all really related. It's like saying Ronald McDonald at a vegetable and it's ironic McDonalds just introduced a triple giant bacon burger or something)

It would be great if we could limit the spin on HN. I had to go to the WSJ to get the fact that he bought the houses then leased them back. He got wind of a developer considering buying up nearby property, developing it then selling the location next to Zuckerberg as a "feature."

It might not change your mind about any irony, but it's certainly worth mentioning.

No matter how many times people bring up privacy issues or the "haha users are dumb fucks" quote in order to characterize Zuckerberg as evil, the fact remains that he has absurd amounts of money and power and is likely to remain that way for a very, very long time if medical science continues to advance in leaps and bounds.

It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives; we must now accept the consequences and embrace the loss of our rights.

Zuckerberg will forever win, and you will forever lose. He will own you for the entire duration of your life. You won't enjoy it, and neither will I, but it is a fact as immutable as the human condition itself.

Well he did famously say that users (are) “dumb f*#ks” for trusting him with their data.

I live close to an area where, in a previous "gilded age", business magnates acquired large tracts upon which they established estates.

Over the subsequent decades, many of those were sold off and turned into -- often quite nice -- housing... well, "tracts", doesn't really fit. Nor does "sub-division"; the use of that word came later and also does not connote the upper scale nature many of these areas.

(Hey, as I suddenly recall, my home is more modest and is not located in the heart of the area I'm thinking of, but I live on what was formerly a substantial country estate of one of these magnates.)

Anyway, my point is, the trend for several decades has been that old estates have been broken up into smaller units. Sometimes, a smaller "core" of the estate remains as an actual estate, perhaps even in the original family, but land-wise, people have "downscaled".

Now... We in the U.S. appear to on the verge of having a new round of estate creation. Gilded age, indeed.

This is like comparing apples to oranges here. Two completely different forms of privacy, it was a nice attempt, but this just came across as a desperate attempt to try and write an article that didn't really make an impact.

Bit of a stretch, no? I agree that any removal of privacy features isn't good, but what Zuckerberg did was stop someone else cashing in on his name/reputation.

Not entirely about privacy.

Reminds me of when CNET reporters got blacklisted by Google in 2005 for posting publicly available information about their CEO.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/

Also, this line from that article is very interesting and almost prescient, given that it was in 2005 and the events that transpired since then making every claim below true.

>Cnet reported that some analysts fear it is becoming a great risk to privacy, because it would be a tempting target for hackers, "zealous government investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics," the article said.

Zuckerberg Seeks Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature

Zuckerberg Pays $30 Million For Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature.

The evil twins, Google and FB, got almost nothing on me because I rarely post and use them from a separate browser.

It's a high bar to clear in today's media, but I think this might be the dumbest article I have ever read.

I guess the original headline "Rich guy in big house doesn't want close neighbors" didn't generate enough Internet Outrage (tm).