Already under fire for allegedly loosening its privacy safeguards in recent months, facebook.com is facing further scrutiny after it announced plans to make some member information visible on web-based search engines such as Google.
From its controversial news feed to recent talk of disclosing members' interests to advertisers, the popular networking site has recently sparked debate about its protection of user profiles, though that information remains far more restricted than on other networking sites like myspace.com.
But Facebook administrators said the new policy — which takes effect early next month and will make members' names, class years and profile pictures searchable by any internet user — will not compromise users' privacy. Facebook members can opt to make their profiles unsearchable by editing their privacy options.
"We're not exposing any new information, and you have complete control over your search listing," said Philip Fung, a Facebook engineer, in a post on Facebook's official blog. "We're expanding search [options] so that people can see which of their friends are on Facebook more easily."
"We think this will help more people connect and find value from Facebook," he added.
Computer science professor Ed Felten said user demand could, in fact, have been one rationale for the change. "I'm sure some Facebook users would be happy to have their information searchable," he said. "[Facebook] may be doing it for the users."
But Felten added that Facebook's new policy may also be in the company's own interest. "They may also be trying to drive more traffic to pages," he said. "Generally, making web pages searchable increases traffic ... and more traffic means more advertising revenue."
Facebook's website states that it is funded by banner and text ads, and according to the technology blog TechCrunch, its revenue in April 2006 was $1.5 million.
Though only a limited amount of information will be searchable, Felten said the change does highlight longterm privacy concerns for Facebook users. "Facebook is accumulating a storehouse of information about people, and people are concerned about the implications," he said. "When people are looking for a job, [records of] youthful indiscretions don't go away."
Expanding search options necessarily leads to privacy complications, Felten said. "If Facebook became fully searchable — if all profile information became public — you'd have to worry not only about what's on your profile, but what other people have posted about you."
But so far, Felten added, "Facebook has had a good record about handling users' privacy concerns."
At Princeton, some students expressed concern about the recently announced change. "It could have been worse," Mary Fan '10 said, "but it's still a bit creepy ... You can imagine stalkers making good use of it."
Nathan Lavdovsky '08 echoed Fan's misgivings. "If someone developed programs that used search engines to make Facebook users targets for telemarketers or spammers, that would be really annoying," he said. "I'd prefer [Facebook] to be more of a closed environment."
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