Um...it's time to get some misconceptions about Facebook out of the way:

1. They're a commercial company. OF COURSE they do something with all the info they get from users who are willing to type it in. To what degree do they do this is the question, but legally speaking, that's what the EULA is for. In more common terms, don't put online what you wouldn't in real life.

2. The "Facebook Development Platform" is simply an API that anyone can use to plug in to their web service. For example, people have used it to make visual representations of their friends. It doesn't give away any more information that what is already freely available to all, such as your name and list of friends.

3. Don't count out the ignorant Facebook masses. Every time Facebook changes the site, these allegations come up time and time again. A lot of the time, it's just unbased fear and doubt spread around, just like the old chain emails about Microsoft charging for MSN Messenger unless the email is forwarded to everyone on your contact list.

Seriously, though, would a open source model be better? Somebody will have to foot the bill for hosting even if development is by the OSS community. I suppose it can be hosted by universities, but why would they raise bandwidth usage exponentially for something very few students have a legitimate use for? If social networking services are sponsored by the university, it also places somewhat of a duty, or onus, for them to monitor the network. Remember universities expelling students for underage drinking from photos they posted online? Not doing so, however, would render them liable for condoning such actions.

Furthermore, implementing a OSS model does nothing to prevent data farming from advertisers. In fact, this model may be more open to having information revealed because the database structures would be freely available to all, or at least more accessible than Facebook's obligations to keep data protected.

All this is simply fear, uncertainty, and doubt placed into the minds of naive students unfamiliar with business and technology. On one hand, they have no hesitations with handing over tremendous amounts of content (sometimes incriminating) to a third party. On the other hand, they're demanding a level of respect that is both undeserved and makes no business sense. They can rectify their grievances by simply switching to different networks or abstaining from participating in such web sites, but their desire to be "cool" overrides rational thinking.