Facebook Now Allowing Users to Open Up Their Profiles to Everyone

March 16th, 2009

By Justin Smith

Facebook added a new feature to its profile privacy settings today, now allowing users to open up part or all of their Facebook profile for anyone on Facebook to see.

In order to open up their profile, users can now go to the profile privacy settings page and change any of the following settings to “Everyone”:

Profile
Status Updates
Links
Wall Posts
Basic Info
Personal Info
Education Info
Work Info
Photos of You
Videos of You

facebookopenprivacy

It’s another step in Facebook’s increasing movement toward openness for those users who want to share with more people. However, profiles opened to everyone will not be visible for search engines – viewers must be logged into Facebook in order to access the open profiles.

“One of the top priorities at Facebook is offering privacy controls that let you choose exactly what you share with whom. We have largely focused on enabling you to give access to your profile to people you confirmed as friends and people in your networks. While these controls remain important and a priority for us, many of you have explained that you also want to open parts of your profile to a wider audience,” Facebook’s Mark Slee said in a blog post.

None of the existing privacy settings have changed, and Facebook says special privacy rules are still in place for minors.

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14 Responses to “Facebook Now Allowing Users to Open Up Their Profiles to Everyone”

Gerhard Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Creepy. I wonder when facebook will officially change its name to twitter-light …
GameOver Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Facebook is so mis-guided these days. Their focus on status and now public profiles is just the latest back-tracking from what made them popular.

Justin – could you please write a post on what it means that FB decided to remove “via app” on only the home page. Personally, I think that shows their true colors.
GameOver Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Yes, if by public you mean logged into Facebook. Hahaha!
Facebook updates privacy features; allows more openness - AutomatTech Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
[...] Inside Facebook reports that by allowing public view, the profiles will still not be available in search results. Also, there has been no change in the privacy options for the minors. [...]
Ian Hines Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Yeah, I noticed that. They are visible to “Everyone” if my “Everyone” you mean people who are logged in with a Facebook account. It just means the viewer no longer has to be a member of your network or a Friend of your Friend.
p@r@noid Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
This is great…. Atleast people who are not using facebook will have a glimpse of facebook and they might use it
Facebook: da oggi è possibile rendere il proprio profilo visibile a tutti su Internet · Commenta la tecnologia, la telefonia, i software Says:
March 17th, 2009 at 4:12 am
[...] Via | Insidefacebook.com [...]
Facebook: da oggi è possibile rendere il proprio profilo visibile a tutti su Internet | 8legs Says:
March 17th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
[...] Via | Insidefacebook.com [...]
The Future of Social Media Has Already Been Written… « The Multifaceted Market Researcher Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
[...] that has encouraged Facebook users to share their lives on the social is now optional. Facebook now allows users to open up their profiles to the entire social network, but not search engines. Another facet of Facebook’s evolution is [...]
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June 24th, 2009 at 11:59 am
[...] In other words, Facebook is making it easy for users to post status updates that are visible not just to their Facebook friends – but for the entire world (and Google) to see. Facebook has said for a long time that it’s planned to give users more granular privacy controls over status updates, but Facebook has never promoted making status updates publicly visible this heavily before – though the company did take a step back in March to allow users to share some content on their profiles with everyone. [...]
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July 9th, 2009 at 8:30 am
[...] designed to be open to all guests, it’s another indication of where Facebook is headed with a more publicly open stream. F48DAEB5-B814-972E-1FF4-476898DB4226 1.02.28 F48DAEB5-B814-972E-1FF4-476898DB4226 1.02.28 [...]
Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine to Include Public Facebook Status Updates Says:
October 21st, 2009 at 9:52 am
[...] model for information-sharing on the site, around when the company introduced new features for making various pieces of profile data more public. Then, in June, the company announced it was testing a new “publisher” that included a [...]
Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine Cutting Status Update Data Deal with Facebook « How To Increase Web Traffic Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 7:30 am
[...] model for information-sharing on the site, around when the company introduced new features for making various pieces of profile data more public. Then, in June, the company announced it was testing a new “publisher” that included a more [...]
aks Says:
December 13th, 2009 at 10:18 am
this one of the great feature which facebook added in their list thanks for sharing it.