Facebook

It has been often said that a guy can forget a birthday only once in his entire lifetime. (because the girl will make an example out of you and make sure that this unpardonable crime is never repeated)
However, whoever said those words has actually never met me. I have been on Orkut for quite some time and have primarily used it for birthday reminders.
I am a member of another networking website Linkedin, but I have never taken the trouble to find out its benefits. All I knew was that when I had a steady job, I was bombarded with all the emails from headhunters trying to place me, when I really did not need their help. And last month, when I tried to use it to get myself a good summer placement job, all I ended up was dead-ends.

Recently, I was invited to join Facebook. Although I am not new to networking sites, but I found this very intrusive. One the homepage, people can actually see what you are upto. That means not only your profile (the view you want to show to others), but also what your friends say about you and what you have said to others. Basically the entire facebook looked to me as one organism which keeps tracks of all your activities.
In the real life, we all meet a certain percentage of jerks. Since we usually share common friends, schools/colleges/offices with these people, these networking sites sites would always put you in the list of people you might know off. Hence encouraging these people to again pry into your life.

In old days, screen name was a perfect cover. You could always pick up a screen name and conviniently seperate your real life from online life. However with picture and video sharing, it has become increasingly hard.

Question: In the era of networking sites, where people can come to know about you from not only what you say and write, but also what other write/share about you, how do you maintain your privacy?