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Facebook is a social website originally used by college students but has recently been opened to all. Users can upload pictures, write blogs, chat, play games, send private and public messages, virtual gifts and add people as their friends, creating a large social network of 400 million users. There are many aspects to Facebook that can draw-in users to waste time, gossip, watch videos and many companies will restrict access to the site. There are indeed real positives to the website in the form of charity causes and conservative networking. Anybody with an account can create an unlimited amount of pages; religious, business, a product, groups, artists, bands, and politics. In fact, if you don't have social networking as a candidate, you are not taken seriously as a contender.

Monetary Value

It is rumored that Facebook generates around $1 million per week in revenue. In September 2006, Yahoo began talks to acquire Facebook a for as high as $1 billion. In October, Google allegedly offered $2.3 billion. All outside offers have been rejected. 2009 estimates put a net value of $6.5 billion. 2010 estimates of the privately held company put the value at $14 billion dollars.

Origins

Facebook was founded in February 2004 by Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg, with help from Andrew McCollum and Eduardo Saverin. By December of 2004, after expanding the site to other universities, the number of registered users exceeded one million. In August 2005 Facebook obtained the domain name facebook.com and dropped the "the" from the site.

Privacy Issues

Compared to Myspace, Facebook gives the user many more options for privacy controls. Under the default private settings, only Facebook users in the same network, or friends of the user, can access another user's profile. There are also separate privacy controls for each type of information (blogs, messages, address and telephone numbers, photos). A user in a completely different network will have no access to another user's profile unless they are added as a friend. Despite these controls, the same problems exist as with any other networking website:

• Many users post their full address, e-mail address, birthday, and telephone number, and these can be available to their entire network. This information in the wrong hands can be used for purposes of phishing, stalking, or even identity theft.
• Some universities have begun to use students' pages to investigate underage drinking and other violations of university policy. This is very possible, since university faculty and staff can sign up for the same network as their students through their campus e-mail account.
• The so-called "news feed" has aroused some discomfort among Facebook users, as it collects all changes among one's friends and posts whenever a user logs in.
• The "wall" feature allows a user to send a message to another user which remains on their profile page. This posting is viewable to everyone who can view the page, and shows up on the news feed for all friends of both the sender and the recipient.
• As with Google ads, Facebook collects profile information, and places ads on the page that reflect the user's personal information.