> It was not a very convincing excuse. Facebook gets people to hand over information about themselves all the time; by what principle would it be unreasonable to sometimes hand some of that information back?
You are not "handing" them anything with an expectation of reciprocity, you (in most cases) willingly give up information about yourself to them in exchange for their free service. They don't need an "excuse" - you were as free to say "no" as they are to you.
I agree that in cases where others give up information about people they know there's no consent from the person (necessarily) but even that is between the person and their peers. There are people in my life who I don't share information with because I know how fast that information will spread if they know it; the kind of privacy etiquette required to respect people's privacy wishes will likely become more commonplace as it's made clear indexing organizations only know what people tell them.
I've been against facebook for some time yet even I don't agree with writers of sensationalist pieces like this. You have what's coming to you when you use third party services like facebook then complain about the imbalance of power they imply. Turns out the reason people who adamantly don't use those services do so other than just 'hipsterism' or whatever you thought were their reasons.