User blog comment:Sarah Manley/Followed pages - a new way to stay up-to-date on your favorite wiki pages/@comment-52915-20100507212423

I agree that is a violation of privacy. Previously people watched pages, under the impression that it was done privately. Users who were away, inactive (or even deceased) were not given a chance to opt out. Active users were not given an awful lot of time to opt out before the feature was launched either.

While it would greatly hinder the immediate use, I think this should be opt out by default, at least for accounts created before the feature was launched.