Facebook opens profiles to public search

In September 2007, Facebook, which from its 2004 founding had stressed the privacy of its user profiles and interactions, opened up its profiles to public search engines such as Google and Bing. Facebook's new "public listing search" allowed anyone to search for a particular person; such searches returned the name and profile picture of all members who had set their search privacy to "Everyone". The benefit to Facebook was to encourage non-users to sign up when they saw their friends and family were using the site. The company gave users one month to set their privacy options before going live. 
https://gigaom.com/2007/09/05/facebook-open-to-public-search/
tags: Facebook, search engines, privacy policies, change of use
Writer: Om Malik
Publication: Gigaom