Proposed Law Would Require Social Networks to be Private by Default

I like the part where they admit they are screwing their customers:

"For instance, if the default settings are all private, it could be hard for new members to get value out of the sites because they won’t be found by other users."

In other words, if the customers weren't ignorant and knew how the change their info to private, the system would fail. (We know they're calling the customers ignorant, because private-by-default means the system fails because users don't change their info to public. Their logic always assumes the customer isn't smart enough to change from the default value.)

While I think that it is important for consumers to realize that there are privacy features, and how to use them, I really don't think that this is an area in need of governmental regulation. The major social networking sites have privacy options, and if people are worried enough about their privacy, they are fully welcome to enable them.