If you want to work for a rental car company that will not hire those with DWI's and you're under 21 or tell them in an interview that you don't drink, your chances of being hired are going to be pretty much non-existent if they look at your Facebook profile and see a photograph of you chugging a beer. I've been hammering away at those issues for months and hope that my message and the similar messages of others have landed on receptive ears in the student community.

Because Facebook's business model depends on students posting lots and lots of content and other students being able to access all of that content so they'll look at page after page (and therefore banner ad after banner ad), I have doubted that Facebook would ever want to really push the issue with their users because it would cost them money. Yet it would also be the responsible thing to do and the folks at Facebook have good reputations. I've pictured them caught in the middle of two goals which are very important, very valid, and very difficult to reconcile. Sure they could allow students to adjust their privacy settings, but why would you want to set up a profile to meet new people if you're going to turn around make that profile inaccessible to the very people that you want to meet?

I have no doubt that Facebook has known for a long time that they have a tremendous opportunity to generate a lot of free content and therefore a lot of additional revenue if they could find a way of turning loose the talents of their unpaid users. But how to get those users to provide their content in a way that the general public can access it without destroying the school-by-school community aspect of Facebook that underlies its success? By creating a separate section where students can write blog entries (oops -- write Notes) and by making that section accessible to the outside world.

I applaud Facebook's efforts to drive more revenue, but I question their commitment to the best interests of their users. Is it really in the best interests of their users to create a new area where students can post content and have that content accessible to anyone? Aren't enough students already being hurt by the content that they're posting to Facebook because that content is accessible to anyone with a university email address, including alumni (and therefore the hiring manager who is sitting across the desk from you when you interview for that entry level job or internship)? Will the bulk of students who still don't get that their Facebook profiles are being used to exclude them from employment opportunities get that the information that they post in these blogs / Notes will only be read by more people and therefore make it even more likely that they won't get hired? Is that what Facebook really wants?

I don't pretend to have all the answers. Far from it. And I don't pretend to know as well as the folks at Facebook how to drive traffic or revenues as well as they do (although we're profitable and I bet they're far from it). But I do think that we do a good job of protecting our hundreds of candidate bloggers by revealing only their first names and last initials to readers of their blog entries. Maybe, just maybe, Facebook will follow our lead and institute a similiar policy. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I hope to be flattered.