I’ll make this quick, because honestly?  It’s about Facebook and we all have better things to be doing with our time than talking about Facebook – that’s what the rest of the internet is for.

Here’s the deal: Facebook – after the incredible success of their Facebook Connect program from a few years back – is now launching their Open Graph program.  They’re exposing pretty much all of their user information to third parties and making a lot of formerly “private” information “outward facing” by default. Why?  Well, the Open Graph system allows all sorts of sites to connect and interact with each other via Facebook.  It’s Facebook Connect on steroids.   Pandora will know via Yelp via Facebook (and Facebook Presence) what clubs you like to hang out at and will deliver content based on that.   Facebook kind-of already works like that, with you being able to use your FB login to access a wide range of websites and link a lot of content back to FB.  The Open Graph is like that, only a great deal more pervasive, and some say invasive.

Now, as a Facebook user, you’ve already agreed to all of this.  As they were keen to repeat at the recent f8: Hacking the Graph conference:

“So we’re absolutely clear: nothing we’re announcing today changes any of the existing privacy settings.”

If you use their service, then its Facebook’s world, you’re just posting in it.

Let’s be clear here, I’m not endorsing Facebook, their activities, or their business model.  This is a company that gladly rolled around in bed with Zynga – the wildly popular social game developer and admitted scammer and purveyor of viruses and malware.  This is also the company that tried to change its TOS to allow them to keep any of your information, be it personal or user generated content, even if you stopped using their service.

The current Facebook Terms of Service allow them to move your information around in the way that they’re currently implementing.  Just because years ago they said that they would never do it – but here, sign this thing we’ll never use that gives us the right to do it “just in case” – doesn’t make their turning around and finding new ways to use your digital footprint to generate revenue a surprise.

Privacy concerns for Facebook users aside, what does this all mean?

Well, as some of you may recall, back in 2009 the White House released the “Cyberspace Policy Review.” It was a strange little document that outlined the results of a 60-day review meant to “assess U.S. policies and structures for cybersecurity.”  The full text of the document can be found here. [PDF]

Without turning this into a long rant or a conspiracy-theory laden diatribe, let me hop to the point.  The policy review calls for:

…a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the Nation.

From here, rather than repeating myself, I’ll let io9′s Annalee Newitz do the talking:

Here is what a “cyber-security identity management vision” really is: A plan for how the government will establish and track your identity online.

…

And here’s where my not-so-wild speculation about Facebook identities comes in. Many companies have turned to Facebook as an “identity management” system (including Gawker Media), allowing people to log into their services using their Facebook identity. The reason is simple: Most people only have one Facebook identity, and they stick with it. There’s a general notion that your Facebook identity is your authentic identity, or at least an identity that you keep over time, and that its characteristics can be traced back to who you are in real life. Therefore, having you log into every web service, from io9 comments to Digg to (possibly in the future) Paypal, is a way of managing your identities. Instead of having a separate identity for each of those services, you have one. Easy to manage, easy to trace.

Why shouldn’t Obama’s cyberczar just cut a deal with Facebook (and maybe a few other social networks like LinkedIn) and turn those profiles into your authentic identities? So you can send mail and buy things using your Facebook ID, and that’s how you’ll be tracked. Hey, you’re already on Facebook right? And you can set your profile to “private.” So it’s easy and “privacy enhancing.” (Never mind how easy it is to get around those privacy settings – pay no attention to that black hat behind the curtain.)

You can read the rest of her breakdown of how pre-existing services can be used to impliment an identity management solution here @ io9.  Fast forward to now, almost a year later and Facebook has begun rolling out features that seem tailor made for use as an identity-verification scheme.  It’s easier than ever for your Facebook profile to be your default profile on a host of websites as well as for all sorts of fiscal transactions. The Open Graph, while still not providing a full-proof method for identity management does make it far easier to track the movements of your Facebook profile through the net and – as more and more features go live over the summer – through the embedded world as well.

The sky isn’t falling.  The mark of the beast isn’t being injected into you when you log into Facebook – well, unless you’re playing FarmVille, then your soul is pretty much forfeit.  It’s just that Facebook is taking advantage of the information you gave them in their quest to continue to monetize your personal information. However, even if these recent privacy concerns and their possible implications have you jumping ship, Facebook will still hold onto all of your information for data-mining anyway.

Is Facebook changing because they “decided that these would be the social norms now” or is it simply because they want to continue to answer the question that has plagued the social networking giant since it opened:  How do we make money off of this?   Obviously, I’d say that the money is, as always, the key –  and there are few better ways to monetize personal information than to use that personal information to provide a useful service to both the corporate world and the government.

My two cents?  Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t care about social norms of privacy, the participatory panopticon or the post-privacy world he’s helping to facilitate (for better or worse) – he just wants the kind of sustainable revenue stream that being a government sanctioned identity management solution could bring.

[See also: "What Does Obama's Identity Management Vision Mean" @ Grinding and "President Obama Welcomes the Cyber State" @ io9.]