Facebook, the social networking site de jour, has decided to open up the profiles of its users to search engines. This means that anyone not registered on Facebook and wanting to nose through profiles will be able do a quick web search to find users on the site.

Although Facebook has said the information that will be revealed is minimal, users have started to reassess some of the pictures and text that have been uploaded to their profiles and criticism of the move has already started to surface. The main complaint being that it will transform the site from a social network into what technology writer Om Malik has called a quasi-white pages of the web.

The addictive social networking site is not new to controversy. Last year over 600,000 users revolted over the introduction of a new feature that notified users of their friends' activity, which went down like a lead balloon with some of the community. The idea was quickly amended with new privacy controls that allowed users to block the feature.

Facebook currently counts over 39 million users and its still growing fast.