Facebook wants to control the Web, Like it or not

23.04.2010
Mark Zuckerberg may look and sound like the irritatingly self-satisfied rich kid you always hated in high school, but I'll say this for him: He's got cojones the size of tractor tires.

Facebook just made a play to take over the entire Web -- or at least, the parts that get the most traffic -- via its new "," officially unveiled at this week's F8 confab.

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Some of the changes are cosmetic. Instead of declaring yourself "a fan" of, say, Red Bull or the Talking Heads or "" on Facebook, you now simply Like them. The bigger change is that Facebook has now dismantled its garden walls and extended Like across the Web. Now you can express your Likes across a wide range of sites and have that information auto-magically transferred to your Facebook page, as well as the pages of everyone on your friends list.

You can also see who else on your Facebook list shares your deep abiding affection for the Bay City Rollers or Hello Kitty boxer shorts -- on the page itself.

In addition, Facebook has decided to generously share your personal information with "select" business partners. Right now that includes just three: Pandora, Yelp, and Microsoft's Docs.com. This is what Facebook is calling "" -- grabbing information from your public Facebook page and using it to "improve" your experience on other sites.