While this appears to be a simple thing from the outside world, it should have far reaching effects on some users of Facebook. Why you ask?

The online hangout Facebook is opening another window to the outside world, letting nonusers for the first time search for members’ personal profile pages.

The company also plans to begin letting Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and other search companies index portions of Facebook profiles to help nonusers more easily find them.

Facebook, which faced a user rebellion a year ago over privacy concerns, stressed that information available through such searches would be less than what someone could find simply by signing up. Users could choose to remain invisible in such searches.

“We think this will help more people connect and find value from Facebook without exposing any actual profile information or data,” Facebook engineer Philip Fung wrote in a company blog entry.

Well, for one, the fact that any of the information on Facebook will suddenly be eligible for spidering by Google is rotten. I used Facebook to keep in touch with specific people. I used Facebook to communicate with those people in a way that was separate from the rest of the internets.

If I wanted all of the stuff I put into Facebook, or “some of it”, exposed to the search engines, I would have just posted the shit on my blogs. Needless to say, I deactivated my Facebook account tonight, and I have no intention of re-activating it anytime soon.

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