Debate has flared up again between advocates of greater privacy on Facebook and people who believe that as long as you are careful what you post and you have nothing to hide, you don't have to worry about who sees what you are writing.

Employers who ask job applicants for the passwords they use to log in to Facebook are going overboard. Such a practice is being condemned, and rightfully so. It is especially egregious because the applicant's friends and acquaintances on Facebook, who are not a party to the job search, would have their privacy compromised as well.

But while privacy is important in online social settings, standing up for personal responsibility doesn't mean you are against online privacy.

If I wanted to stay in my house forever -- never to come out again -- I could, and my privacy would be intact. And I could do whatever I want inside my house. That's my territory. I control what it looks like, how it functions and what I do inside it.

Facebook is entirely different. Mark Zuckerberg and his buddies in Menlo Park, Calif., call all the shots. They get to decide what the environment looks like in my Facebook world. They create the arena in which I chat with my friends, play with apps and like websites, companies and causes. They monitor and track everything I do inside their world -- and they make a lot of money because of the practice.