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Facebook: membership has rocketed this year.
Facebook: membership has rocketed this year.

Facebook changes raise privacy concerns

This article is more than 16 years old

Facebook is opening up its website so that member profiles can be discovered through online search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, as the social networking site looks to boost user numbers.

But the move will spark further concerns about privacy as users have to opt out of the service, rather than opt in, meaning that all 39 million profiles could be viewable when the service goes live.

Until now, only people on Facebook or those invited by existing members to join have been able to search for other users' profiles. The Californian company, however, notified its users this morning that it intends to allow non-members to search for people both on its own site and through internet search engines.

Users can decide to remain "invisible" to non-members by opting out of having a "public search listing" or restricting its appearance only to searches done through the Facebook front page.

The public search listing only includes a person's name and photograph. Non-members can only contact that person if they sign-up to Facebook.

The site plans to start making profiles searchable to the public through its own site from Wednesday night and make the database available to online search engines, including Google, in a month's time.

The rapid rise of social networking sites and the failure of some members to check and change their privacy settings has created fears over privacy.

Security specialists have also questioned the advisability of many members putting their date of birth on their profiles as that information has traditionally been used as a security question by banks.

Facebook saw its popularity increase rapidly last year when it removed controls on who could join the site. Originally intended to help American college students make friends and stay in touch after graduation,the website removed the need for members to have an academic email address last September. Since then its membership has rocketed - rising 62.5% from 24m in the last three months alone.

Allowing anyone to see whether their friends are using Facebook is likely to increase membership still further.

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