TechCrunch has announced today that the popular social network site FaceBook is allowing open registration. FaceBook contains millions of user profiles and people listings.

Skip tracers, private investigators and background research professionals will now have a valuable new search tool, in addition to MySpace and other social network sites, for doing people searches, background searches and pre-employment screening.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook has added a host of new privacy features for people, including:

• Block other users in specific networks from searching for his or her name.

• Prevent people in those networks from messaging, poking and adding him or her as a friend.

• Control whether his or her profile picture shows up in search results.

You can visit the FaceBook site at FaceBook.

Source: TechCrunch

We have discussed the powerful potential of using social networks like MySpace and Facebook to do people searches and background checks and research before.

Once reserved only for high school and college students, Facebook is planning to allow open registration for other people.

According to a post on TechCrunch –

The exclusive Facebook social club, until recently reserved for U.S. college students, has been slowly opening up to other groups. High School students and employees of certain corporations are allowed to create profiles. Recently Facebook also created geographic networks and allowed Facebook users to also add one geographic network to their high school, college or corporate network.

Sometime soon, Facebook will start allowing anyone to join directly into a geographic network, regardless of whether or not they are already a member.

Facebook and MySpace are two of the web’s most popular social networks. Facebook’s interest in allowing open registration will create a great opportunity for private investigators and skip tracers to access another important free web resource for conducting people searches and doing background research on individuals.

Source: TechCrunch.com

In yet another example of the growing influence of online social networks, the Washington Post is reporting on a whistleblower from Lockheed Martin, who posted his concerns about security flaws on a fleet of Coast Guard boats in a video commentary on YouTube.com after being ignored by his bosses and government engineers.

From the article –

Michael De Kort was frustrated.

The 41-year-old Lockheed Martin engineer had complained to his bosses. He had told his story to government investigators. He had called congressmen.

But when no one seemed to be stepping up to correct what he saw as critical security flaws in a fleet of refurbished Coast Guard patrol boats, De Kort did just about the only thing left he could think of to get action: He made a video and posted it on YouTube.com.

Source: On YouTube, Charges of Security Flaws:
Ex-Lockheed Worker Takes Concerns Over Coast Guard Ships to the Web.

We never cease to be amazed at the numerous ways Web 2.0 creators are coming up with to allow people to share more and more personal information online with the entire world. We also never cease to be amazed at how many people are willing to put their lives and personal information on display for others to search and see.

A growing, new network of social maps and atlases allows people to share their favorite hangouts and locations online; making it likely that savvy investigators, people search professionals as well as legal and law enforcement types will be monitoring these sites with interest as they grow in popularity.

From a recent article in PC World on Social Maps and Atlases —

No plain-vanilla mapping site knows your favorite haunts as well as you do. New online services tap that information by enabling you to share your knowledge and memories of your most beloved locales–in your hometown or on the other side of the globe–with the rest of the world. I looked at five of these services: Flagr, 43 Places, Platial, Plazes, and Wayfaring.

Built on conventional mapping data from services such as Google Maps, these sites let you add digital pushpins that link to personal descriptions of the locations.

You can read the entire article @ Social Atlas Sites Let You Map Your Life.

Here is an interesting audio clip of NPR’s Steve Inskeep interviewing Stephen Viscusi, CEO of the Viscusi Group, about the practice of employers using social network sites like MySpace, Friendster and Facebook to do background research on employees and potential employees.

You can listen to the interview @ Employers Tap Web for Employee Information.

Thanks to SmartMobs for drawing attention to a Wikipedia entry that lists some of the interesting ways that mass SMS text messaging has been involved in current political and social situations:

* In January 2001, Joseph Estrada was forced to resign from the post of president of the Philippines. The popular campaign against him was widely reported to have been co-ordinated with SMS chain letters.

* In the wake of the 2004 Madrid train bombings, SMS was used to garner support for large protest rallies. It became known as “the night of short text messages”.

* During the 2004 Philippine presidential elections, short message was a popular form of electoral campaigning for and against candidates such as incumbent president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and main contender Fernando Poe, Jr.

* In March of 2005, SMS was one of the communications forms used to garner support for the Lebanese political rallies.

* The Islamic Republic of Iran disabled their nationwide SMS network during the 2005 Iranian Presidential elections elections in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected President. Some Western commentators have op’ed that this was orchestrated to help get Ahmadinejad elected and to quell political uprising.

* Political organisations such as Cymru X, the Plaid Cymru youth wing, and the Young Scots for Independence, the youth wing of the Scottish National Party, have used a “text referendum” to gain public support and raise the profile of their respective causes. The YSI are currently running text referenda on Scottish independence, nuclear weapons, and a St Andrew’s Day public holiday.

Politicians are finding themselves and their words at the mercy of video sharing site YouTube. With the proliferation of cheap digital cameras and video sites like YouTube, it appears that all the “Little Brothers” have started to turn the cameras on “Big Brother”.

This article in the New York Times illustrates how politicians are getting caught with their feet in their mouths by everyday citizen’s with digital cams and access to YouTube.

From the article —

When politicians say inappropriate things, many voters will want to know. Now they can see it for themselves on the Web.

But YouTube may be changing the political process in more profound ways, for good and perhaps not for the better, according to strategists in both parties. If campaigns resemble reality television, where any moment of a candidate’s life can be captured on film and posted on the Web, will the last shreds of authenticity be stripped from our public officials? Will candidates be pushed further into a scripted bubble? In short, will YouTube democratize politics, or destroy it?

YouTube didn’t even exist until 2005, but it now attracts some 20 million different visitors a month. In statements to the press, the company has been quick to take credit for radically altering the political ecosystem by opening up elections, allowing lesser known candidates to have a platform.

You can read the entire article @ The YouTube Election.

Recent reports show the popular social networking site MySpace pushing past 100 million registered users within the next week. Within just a few years MySpace has become the fourth most popular web site online.

With this many registered users, MySpace, FaceBook and other popular social network sites will continue to be a treasure trove of user-created “public information” that can be used by both government and private investigators and law enforcement officials to track down people, conduct background research and monitor individuals.

An Aug. 2 article in Information Week discusses the legal and financial issues facing libraries, schools and social network sites, if the Deleting Online Predators Act becomes law.

From the article –

Libraries and schools could be required to limit access to certain Web sites if the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which recently cleared the U.S House of Representatives, moves swiftly through the Senate. Introduced by Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), the measure dubbed H.R. 5319 passed by a 410 to 15 vote last week.

The act covers federal organizations that receive funding for computers and Internet access via the U.S. E-Rate program, primarily schools and libraries. The American Library Association (ALA), which is actively lobbying against the measure, estimates two-thirds of U.S. libraries receive this funding.

“The bill is not an automatic ban, and I hear that word ‘ban’ being tossed around a lot,” Rep. Fitzgerald’s press secretary Jeff Urbanchuk said Wednesday. “The bill extends the filter already in place through the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act to social networks.”

Social networking sites YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and others count large numbers of children among their users, though core demographics for those who access sites like MySpace are getting older and the “effects may be less than expected,” said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

As of May 2006, one-third of MySpace’s U.S. users were between the ages of 18 and 34, but 36 percent were between 35 and 54, and nearly 10 percent were 55 or older, according to comScore Media Metrix. The research firm notes that 12- to 17-year olds, an age category filled with controversy for MySpace due to fears of sexual predators, has diminished in importance, falling from 22 percent of the site’s users in May 2005 to 17 percent in May 2006.

Urbanchuk, confident the bill will pass the Senate, said H.R. 5319 brought the issue of online predators to national debate, and in no way is it the final word. In fact, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will have 120 days to define what is meant by “interactive Web sites” or “social network.”

You can read the entire article @ Social Networking Sites, Wikis Fret Over Proposed Law.

Once again, the information posted on social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook and Friendster continues to aid law enforcement officials and investigators.

The following Star News article details how an investigation that resulted from information and pictures that were posted in an online social network led to the confiscation of over 2,000 marijuana plants.

Even more interesting, however, is the fact that Sheriff Bruce Anderson then goes on to warn parents on the dangers of allowing juveniles to publish too much personal information on social networking sites. It is precisely this type of posted personal information that led to the drug bust in the first place. This was probably the wrong article for him to talk on the dangers of social networking sites.

Sherburne County Sheriff’s Department destroyed more than 2,000 marijuana plants as a result of an investigation that rose out of information gathered from a social networking Web site.

According to Sheriff Bruce Anderson, the department’s gang and drug task force gathered enough information off the Web site to execute a warrant at a Zimmerman residence. On the Web site, a juvenile girl indicated there was marijuana growing at her house. When agents from the task force and Drug Enforcement Agency responded to the residence, they found approximately 2,000 marijuana plants growing on the property. The plants were removed and then destroyed. The investigation surrounding the marijuana continues.

Following the incident, Anderson urged parents to be diligent in monitoring the online activities of their children. “The juvenile in question made no attempt to be secretive about the marijuana. In fact, she had a picture of herself holding marijuana posted to her personal page online,” he said.

Anderson encouraged residents to familiarize themselves with social networking Web sites and to limit the amount of personal information listed on the sites. An online search using the term “online safety teens parents” resulted in numerous options for parents to gather additional information. One such site parents can visit is www.onguardonline.gov/socialnetworking_youth.html.