It’s a bit of a paradox—the web tool that has made social information sharing easier than ever has been under increasing fire from users for being largely unwilling to restrain those flows of information. But Facebook has, in fact, been gradually eroding its default standards for user privacy, and the people are upset.

According to WebProNews:

Since Facebook announced its plans to take over the web, there has been a lot of talk about privacy concerns, and about deletion of Facebook profiles. There is also concern about the lack of openness in Facebook’s Open Graph initiative. Others are just bored with the social network. Whatever the reasons, an increasing number of people seem to be interested in deleting their Facebook profiles.

Matt Cutts and other Googlers de-activated their accounts soon after the Open Graph initiative was announced. Remember, you don’t have to delete the account to de-activate it. Facebook makes it very easy to stay. In fact, if you go to delete your account, they will try to guilt you into staying by telling you which of your friends will miss you.

Matt Cutts, we will miss you! Matt is apparently not alone. Search Engine Land discovered how there are a growing number of people searching for how to delete their Facebook page. If you currently start a search on Google typing in “dele” Google Suggest shows “delete Facebook account” as its top suggestion:

Google suggests you delete your Facebook account

“Delete Facebook” also shows as a growing search phrase in Google Trends:

"Delete Facebook" rising on Google Trends

To see just how much and how quickly Facebook has eroded their default privacy settings over the past few years, check out this nifty infographic from Matt McKeon on The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook.

This presents obvious problems for personal Facebook users, for whom privacy usually matters. Open access to pictures, likes and dislikes, comments, wall postings, and status updates to the entire Internet could make anyone uncomfortable.

But should these privacy concerns matter to businesses, whose sole purpose of Facebook use is usually to pass along as much information about itself to the general public as possible?

There might be some times you’ll want to restrict information. Let’s say you have a photo album of an office party that you only want friends, fans, and colleagues to see. Or perhaps you’d like to write a note to all your “confirmed” customers—to whom you might only have connections via Facebook rather than email—without sending something out to the entire web. For the most part, Facebook still gives you these options.

But in the end, it’s just a matter of how much you want to share, and with whom. All users can opt to tighten up access to their profiles. Except for certain gaps in privacy options, it’s Facebook’s default settings that bother people the most.

So the best practice for social media for businesses on Facebook  is to keep anything you want partially private off the site in the first place, and open up the rest for all the Facebook (and beyond) world to see. The site still provides unprecedented Internet marketing opportunities. As WebProNews also points out, Facebook is still the place to reach people (and monetize them!):

“…the point is, Facebook is giving users a lot more reasons to use it, and in some cases it’s not really even a conscious decision. See the recent South Park episode for a good illustration about how Facebook continues to suck more people in. Facebook is where the people are online.”

That’s worth repeating: Facebook is (still) where the people are online. And for businesses, that’s the point.