Facebook + Browser = Privacy? What Privacy?

Facebook is in talks to buy Opera, the company behind the Opera web browser, PocketLint reports. Opera has both a mobile web browsing app and a desktop browser, and it's an alternative to Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox browser, Google's Chrome browser and the Apple Safari browser. Opera says it has more than 270 million users on its browser. Additional sources told The Next Web that it's looking for buyers and currently has a hiring freeze.

(i) Facebook is already doing every sort of datamining it can think of (and probably that its Genetic Algorithms can think of), and apart from your credit card the next best way of knowing all about your intentions is your browser. That is whay, by the way, thers is no way I'll use Google Chrome (though it seems my privacy concerns are not a worry of the Great Masses out there, with Chrome now having the largest installed base).

(ii) One big factor in The Great IPO Tank was the worry about it's inability to monetise Mobile, and Opera is the smartphone browser of default - so that's an insdtant window on the habits of millions of (relatively wealthy, early adopting) mobile users