I've personally had this play out with a number of services. LastFM comes to mind.
I really enjoyed having a persistent record of what I listened to for my own use and for finding new music.
However, I stopped using the service because, honestly, I'm not exactly proud of every song that makes it to my most-played list. LastFM let's you remove a song from your profile if I remember correctly, but it was easier to not share at all than to remove specific types of sharing.
Facebook has this problem times 100. I try and tell everyone I know that isn't technical that Facebook knows every website they've been on that has a like button on it (and then I make a serious face and say evverry site) most people have no idea. The idea that Facebook has this kind of info and is going to start "autosharing" makes me uncomfortable.
The "so-and-so read site X" thing will make this really transparent to people, really quickly. Its creepy how much "Friend X has read article Y on the Guardian" is happening.
Hold on, can you expand on that? I am reading that you are suggesting that facebook would just make public your (like-enabled) entire web history, whether you clicked like or not.
For me, it goes to the fact that I'm not the same person to different people. The fact that I'm willing to share some things with certain people does not imply that I'm willing to share everything with those people.
Very few systems make it easy to manage multiple (and shifting) sharing relationships, so not sharing by default is the easiest thing to manage.
I really enjoyed having a persistent record of what I listened to for my own use and for finding new music.
However, I stopped using the service because, honestly, I'm not exactly proud of every song that makes it to my most-played list. LastFM let's you remove a song from your profile if I remember correctly, but it was easier to not share at all than to remove specific types of sharing.
Facebook has this problem times 100. I try and tell everyone I know that isn't technical that Facebook knows every website they've been on that has a like button on it (and then I make a serious face and say evverry site) most people have no idea. The idea that Facebook has this kind of info and is going to start "autosharing" makes me uncomfortable.