Want an expert lesson in how to respond without actually responding and how to apologize without saying you're sorry? Then you need to read Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg's quasi-mea culpa in today's Washington Post. Do it now; I'll wait.

Zuckerberg's essay comes after more than a month of near silence as Facebook's foes piled on about the social network's rapidly evaporating privacy protections. Until today, the only official response had been from Facebook spokesmodel Eliott Schrage, who tried to deflect the bullets via a smarmy PR session in the New York Times that even Microsoft would find embarrassing.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Cringley laid out the five lessons Facebook needs to learn and warned "Facebook wants to control the Web, like it or not." | Stay up to date on all Robert X. Cringely's observations with InfoWorld's Notes from the Underground newsletter. ]

Zucky started the ball rolling yesterday with an email he sent to blogging doyenne Robert Scoble in which he admits to making "a bunch of mistakes" recently, without detailing what those mistakes were.

In his Post piece, Zuckerberg also says Facebook "missed the mark" (if not the Mark) but failed to elaborate how, beyond admitting that users find Facebook's privacy controls hopelessly complicated.

(The snarks at eSarcasm have a NSFW version of Zuckerberg's essay; I suspect it's closer to how he really feels.)

Maybe he's just forgotten. You know those geeky 26-year-olds -- all ADD, all the time. So here's a quick recap. Since Facebook announced its intention to share users' data with third-party sites via its "instant personalization" features: