BoomTown tried to get Chris Kelly to give up more during an onstage interview I did with the Facebook chief privacy officer last night at the third “Tech Policy Summit” and was only moderately successful in the endeavor.

Oh he is a smoothie all right, as a lawyer and now as a wannabe politician.

Kelly–who is still working at the social-networking site, where his job is to make sure consumer data, privacy, the children and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s reputation are all safe and sound–is also running for the job of California’s attorney general.

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This weekend on Twitter, someone paid BoomTown a compliment of a sort: “I read you because you are a solid fact-based reporter with a Miss Cleo intuition ”

Yipes, because of being fact-based and since I had brought her up in an originating tweet, I had to point out that the well-known-via-infomercials Psychic Friends Network shaman turned out to be a bit of a fraud, although she’s always entertaining, with her jaunty Jamaican accent (she was not, of course, from there).

Nonetheless, it got me thinking about how I would predict what would result from all the deal-making that is suddenly in the air, after six months of ennui from the current economic downturn.

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Facebook CFO Gideon Yu is leaving Facebook, as the company announced internally today that it was replacing him and searching for a new CFO on the path to an eventual IPO.

The Wall Street Journal also reported the news, noting that the huge social-networking start-up was looking for a CFO with “public company experience.”

But several sources within the company said the departure was more due to an increasingly strained relationship between Yu and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg over strategic disagreements about a wide range of issues, from increasing ad revenue to fund-raising discussions with investors.

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Last week, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was all about regret when talking about the umpteenth stubbed toe that he got when the social-networking site changed its Terms of Service and accidentally laid claim to every piece of intellectual property in the world.

Okay, maybe not all, but it was enough of a goof to cause him to have to correct it quickly by introducing a complex new system of user-approval and notification.

Here’s BoomTown’s interview with Zuckerberg, who began by noting: “Whenever users speak in a loud voice, it shows how much people care [about Facebook].”

Awwwww, that’s sweet. But, actually, whenever users speak in a loud voice, it is because they are pissed off at you.

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BoomTown is impatiently cooling heels waiting for a press conference to begin about “new steps Facebook is taking to improve user understanding and ownership of the Facebook terms of service and, more generally, the policies of the Facebook service.”

The Yahoo reorg finally announced this morning is positively thrilling in comparison! It’s like being at the Constitutional Convention, except for geeks.

But we’re liveblogging it anyway!

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Last night, well-known Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen appeared on the “Charlie Rose” interview show, talking about the digital sector and unveiling the news that he is creating a new venture fund.

I had heard rumblings about Andreessen’s funding efforts earlier this week, with sources I talked to jokingly nicknaming it “Project A.”

Actually, Andreessen said the new firm is called Andreessen Horowitz (zzzz), because he is doing it with longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz.

“For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen.

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Under cover of darkness last night, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on the social-networking site’s blog that it would “return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”

Oh, this is just too good to resist. Therefore, BoomTown shall not tarry in our ongoing job of busting the chops of the young Facebook leader, whose minions have actually–and I am not joking here–given him the nickname: The Wizard.

Well, the Wizard obviously had to pull back the curtain last night and show some serious mea culpa to the people, before they got out the pitchforks.

Here’s a translation of Zuckerberg’s message.

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Late tonight, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a blog entry, saying the popular social-networking site would “return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”

Facebook has been embroiled in a controversy this week about its Terms of Service–essentially, a Web site’s rules that users must abide by while using its online service–after changes gave it more sweeping rights over customers’ content and privacy.

Now, in full backtrack mode, Zuckerberg said a new “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” was on the way and asked for user input.

Viva La Revolución! I vote for no more SuperPoking!

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In a BoomTown post last night noting that users should just get used to not having much control of their privacy and posted content online, in the wake of the controversy over Facebook’s Terms of Service changes, how could one leave out this gem of a digital diatribe on the issue by gossipmonger supreme, Perez Hilton?

In an item yesterday, Hilton–who has gotten into a lot of copyright infringement legal trouble himself–asked his fans to boycott the fast-growing social-networking site anyway in one of my favorite pot-calling-kettle-black cyber-tussles yet.

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When Sun Microsystems Gadfly-in-Chief Scott McNealy made his infamous statement about online privacy online in 1999, there was a horrified hubbub at the time that he had the audacity to say such a thing.

You know, that he actually uttered such a terrible thing as the truth.

What a shock then that everyone is now in yet another tizzy about Facebook changes to its Terms of Service, which pretty much state the obvious again by noting that Facebook archives info you posted, even if you quit the service.

As in: You cannot take it back, if you have shared with 476 of your closest “friends,” your bikini shots from Cabo.

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