Ma! They sold my social network to the Russkies!

You're used to the fact that about two years after you close on your house, the bank sends you a note telling you that your mortgage has been sold.

But what about your FaceBook or MySpace accounts?

The Electrionic Frontier Foundation's Deeplinks blog reports on the sale of LiveJournal to SUP, a Moscow-based company without notice to its patrons (nor will a quick view of the site reveal that fact today):

Despite strong protections in the Constitution and the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, United States law is by no means a perfect guarantor of privacy. It surprises many people to learn that U.S. courts have in the past decided that the simple act of handing data over to a company removes many of your constitutional protections over that data (though statutory protections remain).And, despite the United State's long tradition of being a free speech-friendly country, Six Apart, in an apparent attempt to fend off external domestic pressure, has removed content and cancelled accounts in an arbitrary manner that could easily chill speech among its users.

Countries like Russia have, legally and culturally, weaker protections over privacy and free speech than many users might have come to expect. Legal considerations aside, LiveJournal may come under far more intense pressure when run from Moscow than from the United States. The site is very popular among Russian-speakers (the common word for blog in Russian is taken from the site's name), and is used by opposition politicians there as much as by enthusiastic fan-fiction authors. The political status of free expression in Russia is on shakier ground, with journalists, online and off, assaulted and threatened by the authorities.

LiveJournallers, already disturbed by acts of control by Six Apart, could well find themselves caught up in far nastier fights over the public and private content held by SUP's servers. That's of particular concern for Russian users, or the many Russia-speaking LJers in the former-Soviet republics that surround Russia, who do not necessarily trust the political or business culture of Moscow....

The most important lesson for Americans and Russians alike, is to be cautious about with who and where you share your secrets. The Internet has given us the opportunity to make public and secure our own data; hopefully the next generation of social software will give us the tools to use these capabilities for ourselves, rather than entrust the responsibility to others.

This gives new meaning to the following sentence on LiveJournal's privacy policy page:

We may share your personal information to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims, if in our judgment, disclosure is required or appropriate in such circumstances.

Even if your network doesn't get sold, the speed with which old privacy boundaries are crumbling catches us all eventually:

This from Privacy Maven (originally via USA Today):

Just after her honeymoon last March, Wadooah Wali took the de rigueur next step these days: She changed her status on the networking websites Facebook and MySpace from “in a relationship” to “married” and posted pictures of her partner — another woman.

The well-wishes from friends and family poured in, stoking Wali’s happiness. Then came a note that jolted her, noticeable for what it didn’t say. No congratulations. Just: “Nice pictures.”

It was from a professional contact Wali hardly knew — someone to whom she never would have sent something as personal as a wedding announcement, let alone pictures. Wali likes to keep her personal life separate from her professional acquaintances, wary that some might react negatively to her sexual orientation. But suddenly her social circles had collided.

Talk about awkward.

As Privacy Maven notes in commentary:

“Digital litter” — an even larger consequence of TMI, too much information, is a constant problem in social networking. We are still in the early days of a new social networking frontier and need to stay mindful of future implications. Information posted online is, essentially online forever, thanks, in part to Archive.org. If you’ve ever updated and revamped a Web site, you know that Archive.org likely has your early “drafts.”

If you said it online--it's out there somewhere.