In class yesterday, we were talking about Facebook and students' attitudes toward giving away their privacy... Today, it's in the news:
Facebook lets users choose to publicize themselves
"By publicizing member profiles, Facebook could attract a
new wave of users. Unlike most sites on the Web, Facebook has
previously denied access by search services to information on
the site."
Reuters mentions that Facebook, now open to off-campus users, has 39
million members, up 62.5 percent since school let out in May. They'll let in just about anybody... which means just about anybody could see those pictures someone shot at your 21st birthday party or on last year's Spring Break trip...
ZDNET is hosting a discussion here, if you don't just want to chat about it in Facebook: How Facebook public search could empower users
"With news that Facebook is adding
a public-facing (i.e. no need to log-in) 'people search' function, that -- in approximately one month's time -- will be 'spidered' by public
search engines, including Google, it's clear that the so-called social
utility is one step closer to reaching its ambition to become an
operating system for the social web.
"The new 'public listing search' feature enables anyone to search by
name for a person on Facebook, which is sure to raise privacy concerns
and test the social network's ability to balance 'privacy' as a unique
selling point, with the need to fine ever greater ways of driving
traffic to the site and exploit all of the personal data that its
persuaded users to volunteer."
11:33:27 AM 
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