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We’ve all seen them. The Wall Street Journal has one, Digg has one and we’ve all seen what our friends are reading. And THAT’S precisely my problem with social readers. I don’t necessarily want my friends knowing that I’ve read about Snooki’s miraculous weight-loss. Or that I’ve read something about Corn Syrup’s tie to gluttonous appreciation of old Lost in Space episodes. It’s just none of your business and if I want you to know, I’ll share it with you.

So how do you deal with this? First things first, don’t sign up for the service if you don’t have to. Digg gives you the option of signing up, I decided to ignore it (with the little button that says “No Thanks”.

The WSJ is a little more difficult because they require you to sign up for it in order to read the articles (which is really annoying and a bit of a privacy issue I think). So how do you handle it? Easy, sign up for it and then in the app’s preferences on Facebook set it so that only you can see it in your timeline. That way no one else will be able to see that you’ve got a slight obsession with Twilight and Robert Pattinson ~ you twihard you.

My prediction? This is something that a lot of online media outlets will test out and people will not use it. Then again, I like my privacy and I like being in control of what people see of what I’m doing.

If you’re using it, let me know why.