The hub-bubbiest topic on the web these days is online privacy.  Facebook seems to be suffering episodic bouts of kicked dog personification due to their rumored, actual, and now and then amended privacy policy.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook Inc. earlier this month. What follows is Mr. Zuckerberg’s point of view on the matter. After that follow tips and advice as to how to do as Greta Garbo might do to protect her privacy online. If she would have even harbored the thought.

Walt Mossberg: Obviously, people wouldn’t go on Facebook unless they wanted to share with groups of people. But there is this perception that you have been on a course to push people’s information where it’s visible across the Internet unless they do a bunch of stuff.

Mark Zuckerberg: Privacy is a really important issue for us. In terms of the settings that we have, I think that there are some misperceptions. The primary things that people do on the service is they use it to share with their friends and the people around them and their community, and they use it to keep in touch with people. That’s the sharing side. Then there’s the side around staying connected with people. So people need to be able to search for you, figure out which person you are. Having some information be visible more broadly is very valuable for that.

There have been misperceptions that we’re trying to make all the information open, and that’s completely false. There are big buckets of information that we recommend that you share with only your friends privately. Then some of the more basic information, we recommend that that’s visible to everyone. We didn’t change any settings or anything like that. The big feedback we got was that the privacy settings had just become too complex. We’ve built privacy into every single product we’ve ever launched. People were saying we want to make sure that we have control over how we’re sharing information, but with all these settings, we’re not sure how to use them. So, we built one main setting that controls all of the information that they’re sharing on a day-to-day basis.

On June 16, 2010 EPIC, (Electronic Privacy Information Center), Privacy Groups Recommended Further Changes for Facebook: EPIC has joined a letter, organized by the ACLU of Northern California, calling for Facebook to fix ongoing privacy problems with the social network service. The letter, signed by several privacy organizations, recommends that Facebook make “Instant Personalization” opt-in, limit data retention, give users greater control over their information, and allow users to export their content from Facebook. EPIC has a complaint currently pending at the Federal Trade Commission, charging that Facebook has engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices. For more information, see EPIC Facebook Privacy.

I foresee more privacy changes in Facebook’s future but until then….

Below are eight things you shouldn’t give to a social network – when signing up for an account, posting content or interacting with your contacts through the network.

1. Access to your email account. During the registration process, social networks often solicit a new user to provide an email address and account password so they can access the user’s email address book.  To be safe, don’t provide this information at all.  There are some social networks that capture a user’s email contacts and then solicit them – often repeatedly – to join.  If you consider providing an email address and account password to a social network, read all agreements (including the privacy policy) very carefully before clicking on them.

2. An email address associated with your professional life. Never provide a work-associated email to a social network, especially when signing up.  Consider creating a new email address strictly to connect with your social networking profile(s). Jobseekers should take special care to keep professional and personal lives separate.

3. Your exact date of birth, especially in combination with your place of birth. Your exact date of birth may be useful to an identity thief.  A 2009 study published by researchers at Carnegie Mellon showed that a date and place of birth could be used to predict most, and sometimes all, of the nine digits of one’s Social Security number.  If you do decide to post your birthday, use privacy settings to restrict the visibility of this information and don’t provide the year.

4. Your browsing history. Delete cookies, including flash cookies, every time you leave a social networking site. Also consider using a proxy server to mask your IP address, such as Tor.

5. Vacation Plans. Don’t publicize vacation plans, especially the dates you’ll be traveling.  Remember, no matter how carefully you construct your privacy settings, there’s no guarantee that what you post won’t become known to unauthorized viewers.

6. Public posts with your address, phone number or email address. Don’t post your address, phone number or email address on a social network profile or status update.  Scam artists as well as marketing companies may be looking for this kind of information. If you do choose to post any portion of this, use privacy settings to restrict it to approved contacts. Be especially wary of providing a GPS location of your home.  If you use a location-aware social network, use extra caution! Don’t publicize the location of your home because people will know when you are not there. (See Please Rob Me – Raising Awareness about Oversharing)

7. Compromising, sensitive, embarrassing or inflammatory pictures or posts. Remember that whatever goes on a network might eventually be seen by people not in the intended audience. Think about whether you would want a stranger, an insurance agent, the government, your mother or a potential boss to see certain information or pictures.  Don’t be afraid to ask to have content removed.

8. Money. Be wary of requests for money, even if they are from contacts you know and trust. If a contact’s account is compromised, a scam artist may use his or her name and account to attempt to defraud others through bogus money requests.

Additional General Tips for Using Social Networks

1. Become familiar with the privacy settings available on any social network you use.

2. Stay aware of changes to a social network’s terms of service and privacy policy. You may be able to keep track of this by connecting to an official site profile, for example Facebook’s Site Governance.  Consider subscribing to an RSS feed for Tosback, a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to track changes in website policies (covers some but not all social networks).

3. Be careful when you click on shortened links. Consider using a URL expander (as an application added to your browser or a website you visit) to examine short URLs before clicking on them.   Example of URL expanders include LongURL, Clybs URL Expander and Long URL Please  (Privacy Rights Clearinghouse does not endorse one URL expander over another.)

4. Be very cautious of pop-up windows, especially any that state your security software is out of date or that security threats and/or viruses have been detected on your computer.  Use your task manager to navigate away from these without clicking on them, then run your spyware and virus protection software.

5. Be aware that your full birth date, especially the year, may be useful to identity thieves. Don’t post it, or at a minimum restrict who has access to it. (Yeah I know I said this before, but it merits repeating.)

6. Use caution when using third-party applications. For the highest level of safety and privacy, avoid them completely.  If you consider using one, review the privacy policy and terms of service for the application. WhatApp? rates applications, browsers, platforms and social networks on privacy, security and openness. While this rating system is still under development and is not a guarantee that an application is safe, it may provide users with additional information when making a decision about whether to use an application.

7. If you receive a request to connect with someone and recognize the name, verify the account holder’s identity before accepting the request. Consider calling the individual, sending an email to his or her personal account or even asking a question only your contact would be able to answer.

8. If you receive a connection request from a stranger, the safest thing to do is to reject the request. If you decide to accept the request, use privacy settings to limit what information is viewable to the stranger and be cautious of posting personal information to your account, such as your current location as well as personally identifiable information.

9. Take additional precautions if you are the victim of stalking, harassment or domestic violence.

10. Take additional precautions if you are a job seeker.

11. In the event that your social networking account is compromised, report it to the site immediately and alert your contacts.  You will need to change passwords, but proceed with caution because your computer security may have been compromised.  Malware, including key-logging software, may have been installed on your computer.  If you use online banking, do not log on from the computer that may have been compromised until you have ensured your computer security is intact.