Facebook getting into people search with Public Search Listings
Facebook announced this morning that it is now publishing the names and profile photos of all members with search privacy settings set to “Everyone” to the public.
This has two implications: non-members can now search for Facebook members and see all members’ names and photos, and web crawlers (like Google) will now more readily index the Facebook member rolls.
While public access isn’t entirely new (public profiles have been around for a long time), Facebook is clearly pushing the marketing/privacy boundaries a little further by allowing for personal profile photos to be so readily accessible to the general public and archivable by open web crawlers. While this change won’t be a major scare for most members, it does open new scenarios for privacy violations.
[tags]facebook,public,people,search[/tags]
September 6th, 2007 at 4:23 am
I think this is a good move for Facebook and its users. That said, I can see the tabloids having a field day every time some dim-witted 14 year old gets into trouble by posting sensitive personal information on a fully public profile.
I commend Facebook for their achievement, but I think they need to start thinking about their users a bit more. While the majority of people on FB are competent enough to set their privacy options (and know what they all mean), there are thousands, if not millions, of users who haven’t got a clue.
This needs to be addressed quickly, with efforts made by schools and the networking sites themselves to give kids (and more crucially their techno-illiterate parents) the knowledge they need to protect themselves online.
September 6th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Leechio, Facebook isn’t making profiles public. They’re just making profile synopsis public. There is no personal info on the synopsis file.