Popular social networking site Facebook has added a public-facing search function in a move which is likely to anger privacy advocates. The function will initially allow anyone who is not registered with the site to search for a specific person. More controversially, in a month's time, the feature will also allow people to track down Facebook members via search engines such as Google. The firm said that the information being revealed is minimal. Privacy erosion The public search listing will show the thumbnail picture of a Facebook member from their profile page as well as links allowing people to interact with them. But, in order to add someone as a friend or send them a message, the person will have to be registered with Facebook. Users who want to restrict what information is available to the public or opt out of the feature altogether can change their privacy settings. They have a month to do so. Despite assurances from Facebook, critics have expressed disappointment at the move. "This move transforms Facebook from being a social network to being a quasi-White Pages of the web," commented technology writer Om Malik in his blog GigaOm. Mr Malik, and others, are concerned about the data trail that people are routinely leaving behind them on social networking and other sites. There are concerns that personal content will become aggregated for marketing or other purposes. Security experts have pointed out the dangers of publicising your date of birth - one of the options in a Facebook profile - because of the way it has been traditionally used as a way of identifying bank customers. Facebook began life as a way of keeping US college students in touch with each other. Devised by Harvard drop-out Mark Zuckerberg, the site now accounts for 1% of all net traffic and is the sixth most visited site in the US The social networking site is thought to have about 39 million members. Numbers have jumped since the firm removed the need to have an academic e-mail address in September 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6980454.stm ---------------- Best get those privacy settings changed now, unless ya want a bunch of stalkers after you....
YEAHHH!!!! I can lurk on facebook userssss....!!! i received some invitations from ppl...but never bothered to create a profile....but do wanna see theirs though hahaha...it was annoying that everyone could lurk on my hi5....(not that theres anything to see though) but i couldnt see facebook profiles...
haha same here, but i just wana see the photos of nights out they post, cause they dont post em anywhere else...
PFFF what do u mean...."lurkers like you"???? if u dont want ppl to see ur face dont put ur pic on the web.... please dont come and tell me u never go and look at other ppl's facebook.... and come on..dont u think that IF the employers want to they can create an account to check u out? It's people like you who i think are hypocrites....saying "people are lurking on me" If u dont want to be seen dont put ur pic on the web or make a private website with 10 passwords...
Now your hobby is stalking ppl. You surely have evolved hahaha... must be those boring moments at home eh?
friends keep on sending invites and tell me to join facebook, will not join, now i don't have to join to look at their profile lol, yup now people who went all out on their profile has to alter it to make it job friendly lols
Well i have a facebook i haven't really done much to it but no one can see my profile set for friends on my list.
Hahaha...ok if u were joking....nvm.... i thought u were serious....-pirate Hahaha...no....like i said they invited me
some chick msged me on facebook today asking me if I was the "one" she noes so I said, I'm always the "one". hehe
lol, um.... so after breaking it down, the only diff is creepers can now do what they've always could've been doing, except without registering right? doesn't seem like a huge deal to me =/ the article makes it seem outrageous though, lol
Thats some weird friends you got, inviting you to stalk them Anything internet is never secure. You think you can get privacy on it, boy, are you ever so wrong. Tell us who do you stalk AD, you sure dont suffer from modesty -cool Lol, dont you wish. -whistle
