Google Buzz got slammed for prepopulating its users’ friends lists based on their most frequent email correspondents. Facebook has taken heat for privacy settings that default to a high level of sharing. So what’s the big deal about sharing stuff with people you know already? RL Shrag has a fantastic analogy that makes the whole point incredibly clear.

Letting Yahoo or Facebook or Twitter create our list of “Friends” is not unlike removing the front door to your home; you don’t invite people, any wandering soul can just stroll in. As I said before, the friends of our childhood were determined by where our parents chose to live.  But, we’re the adults now, right? We should get to choose.

Read the rest of her thoughts on social network lists that auto-populate in A Whole New Bucket: Maybe There is a Reason We Lost Touch.