at 04:00 on May 15, 2010, EDT.
By The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Some Facebook users are learning a tough lesson about the importance of privacy settings.

A new website is exposing embarrassing Facebook messages posted by users, who probably don't realize their privacy settings are turned off.

The website FacebookSearch includes posts with people brazenly admitting to playing hooky from work.

Others pull no punches in making fun of their bosses.

And some are of a very personal nature, falling into the category of too much information.

The founders of the site say they have no malicious intentions.

They simply hope to show naive Facebook users that there are very real consequences to not guarding their privacy online.

---

On the web:

FacebookSearch -http://bit.ly/9lL5DI


©The Canadian Press, 2010

i'm going to start a webshite embarassing prince fans with stupid posts. i'm going to call it prince.org

Facebook was not created to join you with your friends. Facebook was created to collect as much of your personal information as possible and then sell that information to any company willing to pay for it.

This is why there is a "Facebook violated my privacy!" story in the news just about every day.

So if you are on Facebook, beware - they are not your friend. They want your information, they will get your information, and they will sell your information.

Which is another terrific reason to make it as easy as possible to link org threads to Facebook.

Genesia said:

Genesia said:

The fact that you and I agree on something probably SHOULD be shared with the world!

RodeoSchro said:

That's another discussion over here http://prince.org/msg/3/336307

luv4u said:

Yeah, it's the same issue but two different topics.

failbook is a fun one also

And the moral of the story is, either make sure your privacy is set or use an assumed name.

RodeoSchro said:

Don't use your real name or contact info. Problem solved.

Who puts their cell phone number or home address on an open site anyway?

I have never had any issue with facebook...but then again, it's set to private, I don't have a profile under my full name and do not have any personal contact info on there.

JustErin said:

I've got my privacy set open, but I use a fake last name.

Hopefully there aren't any Erin Renman's out there getting fired over my status updates.

meow85 said:

Great advice, but Facebook is all about real names - at least, if you're looking for/want to be found by old friends. Which was Facebook's marketing strategy all along.

If I had a Facebook account under "RodeoSchro" or "Second Funkiest White Man in America", I would never be found by anyone looking for me.

I'm about to delete my facebook account...they're having too many problems for comfort.

KidaDynamite said:

consdering as well cause its too much blah and then thru applications they can also share info again and then sometimes they auto enable options u dont wanna enable. its a lot of hassle it seems to run relatively normal on there.

RodeoSchro said:

I make sure anyone who wants to find me does either via private message, email notice or otherwise.

KidaDynamite said:

Good luck deleting it. That's a herculean task in and of itself.

.
[Edited 5/15/10 17:26pm]

Efan said:

you serious?

Efan said:

I lasted on FB exactly one day,

I let a friend talk me into it because she kept bugging me. Before I could even get my damn password to work I got a ton of friend requests in my email from mofos I never heard of...Russians 'an sh*t!

I cancelled it the next day...is there anything else I should do???

babynoz said:

I keep hearing people say they've had that happen, but I never have. The only invite I've ever gotten from a stranger was from some woman in the US whose name is similar to mine.

meow85 said:

It was before I had even logged on to set my page up...I got spooked and quit.

Beware if you get any weird friend requests from folks in Japan.

KidaDynamite said:

They make it really easy to deactivate your account, but that just takes it offline and keeps it ready for you should you decide to reactivate it. Deleting it is different--see here for some more info. Even when you do delete a Facebook account, a lot of things--like photos--remain on Facebook's servers. You're never really gone from there, apparently.

JustErin said:

Exactly. The very little info, the much better.

Timmy84 said:

Efan said:

Awww damn.

See, this wouldn't bother me too much if I knew I wouldn't have any problems but there's a psycho chasing me and another orger around, she's on facebook the org and plenty other fansites and I don't know what the heffa is capable of...she could be watching right now.

KidaDynamite said:

There's nothing I can't fix, we'll have it deleted soon if need be. Completely. Poof.