With privacy concerns sparking some retreat from Facebook in recent weeks, and the online community giant promising changes, two attorneys have penned a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle extolling what they would like to see adopted as the Facebook User's Bill of Rights.

Jack Lerner, a clinical assistant professor of law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and director of the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic; and Lisa Borodkin, an Internet and media attorney and online journalist, jointly wrote the column and the list.

“Social media sites keep changing their terms of use to make our information public, or automatically share it with other services, without the knowledge or consent of millions of users. Did you know that every photo you post on Facebook has a unique Web address that can be accessed by anyone without authentication? Or that Google Buzz made users' top e-mail contacts public, correcting the problem only after a massive outcry?” they stated.

“There's more. The sites make it difficult and confusing to opt out of these unwanted changes: when even privacy experts can't figure out how to undo them, you know there's a problem. Perhaps worst of all, they are disingenuous about the nature of the changes: they tell us that they are giving us more control over our information, even as they make more of it public against our will.”

So, they argue, bring on the Bill of Rights, which would include: Honesty; Accountability; Control; Transparency; Freedom of movement; Simple settings; and Treatment as a community, not a data set.