Psst! Facebook’s For Sale!
What is the latest rumor on the net? Facebook’s chatty users love to gossip. Rumors of buyout talks between the student-focused social networking site and any number of high profile media and technology players have been circling since Facebook earned its first round of venture funding in 2004. According to an article published by the Forbes 
magazine the latest bout of speculation, reported Thursday, involves Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and an asking price near $1 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. That’s not a bad bid given that Facebook has about 10m active users and that number is still growing!
The speculated sale comes after an ongoing series of changes to the site’s privacy settings, which at first infuriated many users though the furor has quieted since Facebook honored some of their wishes. Last week the company said it would eventually open the site to the public rather than limit it to people affiliated with certain organizations like schools or companies.
I can’t hesitate to question the motivation behind making public Facebook content through google indexing and making it open to any ‘other’ interested parties, groups and organizations. I understand Yahoo! wants to make more money through ads but let them leave membership open for every other dick and harry and we’ll see what happens–we will all leave Facebook. The fact that it consists of students only is what makes Facebook so special, however an oversight might predict that employers could be lured into Facebook to scout for talent of potential employees once it is made public. Nevertheless, I highly doubt any progress thinkers would laud Facebook for making their personal info public available in the internet!!!