It's no biggie. A person who knows how to configure their privacy settings has nothing to worry about anything.

Beena, Canton, MI

Ok... Facebook sent me this message!! Due to my profile settings the current changes have absolutely no effect on me. If people dont want to be found then they can change their profile settings.

"Because you have restricted your search privacy settings your public search listing will not be shown. If you want friends who are not yet on Facebook to be able to search for you by name, you can change your settings on the Search Privacy page.

No privacy rules are changing; if you do choose to make this public search listing available, anyone who discovers your public search listing must sign up and login to contact you via Facebook."

Tim Osman, London,

I deactivated my facebook account last night, after reading about this. I had my privacy settings high but still felt uneasy about it becoming publically searchable, and actually, I don't think I ever felt 100% safe having my details on there - I didn't ever include my phone number, DoB or a photo. but then I was tagged in friends photos, so unless one goes through and untags oneself in all photos, it is veyr hard to remain private!

Alice, London, UK

Simple:- provide only false information about your self.

John Slipper, New York, New York

This is the silliest article, seems to be purely speculative. According to whom is this going to be controversial? I saw it on facebook last night, went straight to my privacy settings and made sure I wasn't visible.
And btw, in September last year facebook wasn't open to the public, so I'd love to know where the journalist got the information about the "outcry" from regarding the newsfeed. "Hundreds protested" - how did they protest exactly? And since when is "hundreds" an outcry on the internet? More like a whimper.

freya, london,

In order to see someone's personal information, you have to approve them as your friend. So if you don't know someone, then don't approve them...

Traci, Houston,

They have privacy options too that will hide your account to search engines...

Nick, Portland, US

That was the point about Facebook, that it was a social utility site (not openly public like myspace) and that only people you added as a friend could see your details. Making personal details public will only detract from the sites popularity.

Wes Brown, Leeds,

But you cannot view profiles of those outside your network without becoming friends. Becoming friends requires confirmation. So making your profile private is a perfect solution to prevent others from accessing personal data.

James Ripley, CC, TX

I agree with the previous comment. This is silly. Anything you post on facebook is public and available to anyone for any purpose. Anyone who doesn't understand that is brain dead.

Rusty Cashman, Vista, CA

yeah thats true, but you can also make your profile private im sure, just do that and noone can view your info except peoplke you add as friends

Jordan Dunn, princeton, Ky

But you can access the site already by getting an account, can't you?

Matthew Clarke, Worcester, Worcestershire

I'm a Facebook user and personally, I don't think it's that bad. I was able to change my privacy settings and hide my contact info from everyone but my friends. It's not a complete invasion of privacy. It's no different than a non-user looking someone up on MySpace (I also have a profile on that site). It has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Amanda, Walnut, US