The Facebook Community are divided over the recent announcement by Facebook that user profiles will soon be indexed on search engines. Like Orkut, to search for individuals in Facebook you need to have an account; but soon you will be able search Google et al for people that you know, and if they have a profile in Facebook, this will appear in the SERPS (search engine results pages).
Many people will have no problem with this, and many people are already looking to exploit this by marketing their online businesses through Facebook, however there are many users of Facebook who would prefer prospective employers and school bullies to not be able to so easily find their personal information on the internet.
Although Facebook users can opt out of the public search listings, some people fear that many people will only become aware of this change after their details appear online. There are many casual Facebook users who only log on once a month or so to see if old school friends and work colleague have signed up, and these are the ones that may fall victim of the change.
For those in doubt, and who require some reassurance, then Facebook have explained that there is an opt out policy:
“if you do not want your public search listing to be visible to people searching from outside of Facebook, you can control that from the Search Privacy page. Please note that you will only appear in searches outside Facebook when your search settings are set to “Everyone”.”
This may be considered a move to make Facebook a more commercial platform, and open it up for increased advertising and targeted marketing. Although limited profiles will be visible online, those profiles may still contain enough information to allow spammers to target groups of individuals that use the previously “closed” social networking site.
