Schwartz On Security: Click 'Dislike' For Facebook Safety

Slideshow: Cloud Security Pros And Cons

Pescatore said there's a pattern to Facebook's security spin. "Basically, what you see is Facebook taking several steps to protect its customers -- advertisers. If they were trying to protect Facebook users, they would have taken very different steps. Because what you don't see is any real attention to actually addressing the real vulnerabilities."

Unfortunately, this has echoes of the story that broke in August about Microsoft axing better Internet Explorer 8 privacy controls because it would result in less advertising revenue -- for Microsoft, among others.

How can people still use social networks, but stay more secure? Stemming the flow of information to third parties is a start, for example by deactivating content-sharing buttons such as Facebook Connect.

Helpfully, Google Chrome users can employ an extension developed by Google engineer Brian Kennish, called Facebook Disconnect. The extension blocks the flow of data to the more than 1 million websites that use Facebook Connect. As Kennish said in the accompanying release notes, Facebook Connect "has a history of leaking personally identifiable information to third parties." Accordingly, his extension stops it from being able to track you.

Maybe the secret for better social networking security for the masses would be a browser plug-in that goes one step further. Let's show what Facebook -- or MySpace and LinkedIn, or Google and Microsoft, or any other website -- earns, in real-time dollars, thanks to serving advertising to you and selling your data to outsiders.

Call it the "Follow the Money" extension. People could still connect via their social network of choice. But if they saw the meter running in the background, would it cast their social interactions in a different light, perhaps at the same time highlighting the accompanying and alarming security and privacy concerns?