The social-networking Web site Facebook.com has launched a new public search feature which allows people who are not logged into the Web site to perform a search of Facebook users. Within weeks this option will be expanded, allowing Facebook profiles to be searched for through search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
‘We’re expanding search so that people can see which of their friends are on Facebook more easily,’ Philip Fung, an engineer for the Web site, explained in a blog entry.
He said that the public search results will, at most, list only the name and the profile picture of the person searched for. Users who do not want their public search listings to be visible were encouraged to edit their privacy settings from the ‘Search Privacy’ page, located on the top right corner of the user’s profile screen.
‘The social ramifications for the current Facebook search policy remain pretty much what they were for the former policy: robust and near-constant access and visibility for each participant,’ said Eric Dietrich, a Binghamton University philosophy professor.
Facebook users aren’t the only people who have been getting the benefit of these enhanced features. Outside institutions have begun to use the networking Web site to find information on its users.
Across the country, graduate schools have begun to access applicants’ profile information and pictures posted, and considered them in order to determine whether or not the applicant is right for the school. In some cases, police have used the Web site in ongoing investigations as a way to connect people to crimes that otherwise might have been impossible to connect them to before.
Dietrech said that Facebook, as well as many other modes of communication, have taken a frightening trend in recent years.
‘If matters continue in this direction, then the ramifications are fascinating and perhaps shocking ‘ Dietrich said, citing his belief that people will become more constantly scrutinized online by this free flow of information.
In this expanding age of technology, where the flow of information appears to be picking up speed and growth with each passing day, Dietrich has posed an interesting and, for some, frightening question: ‘Can the Matrix be far away?’