Jonathan Zittrain explains Ronald Bowes's work on the Facebook membership list

Here is a very clear explanation of how Ronald Bowes stripped out, aggregated, and republished a large number of Facebook users' already public data, along with some well-informed comments about whether or not it matters. In short:

• it was only to be expected;
• it probably does not matter all that much;
• caveat "emptor";
• if you change your privacy settings on the web, your previously public data may well be for ever out there beyond your control;
• this is good example of the generative nature of the Web.