Well, its official. Through a variety of efforts, it looks like Facebook has buckled to the perception that folks don’t like their activities being broadcast across the Facebook network. Mr. O’Neill has the details, but it sounds like that rather than automatically publishing stuff I bought, say that Dancing With The Stars Cardio DVD (did anyone else feel bad for Mel B?) — which I *swear* is for my wife — in the news feeds of my “friends”, it will now appear in my own profile for me authorize *first* before it gets sent out.

Better yet? If a Facebook user “forgets” to do anything about the notification (i.e. authorize or delete it), then the notification will actually go away. Furthermore, it sounds like this authorize / delete option will appear with every commercial transaction between Facebook’s social “partners” and any given Facebook user.

Clearly to privacy fans, this is a time to feel triumphant.

On the other hand, I can only wonder what this is going to do to Facebook’s bottom line. To go from default opted-in, to now, default opted-out, with the choice to opt-in actually *disappearing* if you forget to do anything about the notice? I could see the adoption of the service going from a rankled (and hoodwinked) 70% of Facebook users to a “happy-to-share-my-purchases” 10% or less.

In addition to wondering what this will do to Facebook’s evaluation, I also wonder if all of this will mean a restructuring of the deals Facebook cut with its partners? Of course the actual details of these deals are unknown to many / most / all of us, but if there was some lump sum paid out initially, will any of them ask for a portion of it back?

While the users who are left will clearly be “happier”, and a better representation of users who want to actually share their purchases, and therefore, hopefully a better “quality” of traffic that ultimately converts for these advertisers as the percentage of people clicking on any ads in the past has been utterly abysmal.

I guess the question remains is if these changes, from a marketing point of view, will make using Social Ads any more effective by weaning out folks who are uninterested — and more importantly, if the subsequent volume of traffic that remains is *enough* to justify what Facebook partners are paying Facebook.

Or, perhaps, is that “had” paid Facebook?