Over the last few weeks, you may have noticed an additional home page box that features "People You May Know". We built this feature with the intention of helping you connect to more of your friends, especially ones you might not have known were on Facebook.

We take spam prevention seriously here at Facebook, but unfortunately, there is spam on the site. As an example, you may have seen Wall posts advertising free ringtones among other spam, as well as a more malicious form of spam called "Phishing". These two trends are related, and here's why:

Phishing is a method to trick Internet users into visiting fraudulent websites. Phishing websites are designed to look like the login page of popular websites. Because they look real, people log in, accidentally giving criminals access to user accounts. These can then send spam messages to perpetuate the phishing websites and promote services or products. When a phished account is used by a spammer, more Wall posts that are spam or links to phishing sites are sent out, and the cycle continues.

Wall posts that result from this will look out of place; they either advertise products or ask to log you in to Facebook from another site when clicked. If either case is true, keep in mind that it might be spam or a phishing attempt. We wanted to spend some time giving you tips to help you protect your own account, as well as your friends' accounts.

• Remember, Facebook will never ask for your password in an email, Facebook message, or any medium that isn't the login page. Though you will need to re-enter your password when you set a security question, change your contact email, or send a virtual gift.
• Be extra aware of weird Wall posts. Don't click on any links—on a Wall or elsewhere—if you don't know where they go.
• Set a security question for yourself on your Account page. If somehow something malicious shuts you out of your account, you will need the answer to that question in order for our User Operations team to let you back in. (If you've already set your security question, you won't see a prompt for it on your Account page.)
• Be extra aware of what website you are using to log in to Facebook (and other websites). Phishing websites can be made to look like other websites (like the Facebook log in page), and might try to disguise their urls. Be smart: www.facebook.com.profile.a36h8su2m8.info/login starts out looking like a legitimate Facebook website, but that a36h8su2m8.info part means it's fraudulent. Set and use a browser bookmark to make sure you always log in from facebook.com
• If you see a Wall post that looks like spam on a friend's Wall, tell the author to delete it and reset their password immediately.
• Use a modern web browser to benefit from anti-phishing protection
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Firefox
• Check out opendns.com. This is another method for blocking specific domains that host phishing sites.

If you think you've been phished or find a phishing site,

• Reset your password on your Account page.
• Report the issue to Facebook here.
• Submit phishing sites here and here.

Phishing is nothing new, so on our end, we're hard at work developing solutions to make Facebook more resilient to phishing. You may see more changes to Facebook designed to protect your privacy against phishing attacks in the future. If there's anything left unanswered, check out our Security Center.



Ryan works on the site security team and is a dodgeball ninja.

At Facebook we love tools that allow you to see what people around the globe are searching for or discussing on blogs, such as Google Trends or Technorati. We thought it would be cool to show trends on the public and semi-public forums across Facebook (also known as Walls). Today we're announcing the launch of Facebook Lexicon, a tool where you can see the buzz surrounding different words and phrases on Facebook Walls. Lexicon pulls from the wealth of data on Facebook without collecting any personal information in order to respect everyone's privacy.

The Wall is a really interesting place to look for buzz, because when one person writes a post on a friend's or a group's Wall, tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people might see it; those viewers may read, digest, and pass on that information, spreading it virally. So when my friend Kasey wrote on my friend Blaise's Wall saying how she really liked the movie Juno, I saw her post and knew I had to see it for myself. It seems like a lot of users share her sentiments; excitement about the movie grew significantly when it was released in early December:

Chances are, you use parts of the Internet that aren't Facebook. You might post photo albums using Flickr or Picasa, for example, instead of on Facebook. There are a lot of good sites out there, unfortunately, that can sometimes mean a lot of switching around for your friends, and it can make it harder for them to discover the very best of your content. With that in mind, we've introduced a way for you to import activity from other sites into your Mini-Feed (and into your friends' News Feeds).

This week marks the launch of Facebook Chat—a new way for you to communicate with your friends in real-time. The Wall and Inbox have been the primary ways to communicate, but when more immediacy is necessary—for example when making plans for lunch in half an hour or arguing over a foul call in the NCAA tournament—they might not be enough. Chat aims to fill this gap.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about some of the ways we were responding to user complaints about Application requests. This week, we're introducing something that deals with another user complaint: that one friend that sends too many invites and requests.

You probably know who that one friend is; for whatever reason, the applications they are inviting you to use are not interesting to you. Now, next to every application invite you'll find a link to ignore all current and future invites from that friend. Your friend won't know that their invites are being ignored and you can still receive your normal Facebook notifications from that person. We hope this will allow you to get more requests that interest you and cut down on the requests that don't.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be making lots of small changes to the site to make it simpler and easier to use. You might see some of these changes; others you might not even notice, like removing the word "Updated" from News Feed stories that have new information added to them.

Today, we are introducing privacy changes that work towards our goal of giving you the control you need in order to share information comfortably on Facebook. There are two ways we've changed things: a standardized privacy interface across the site, and new privacy options available through this interface.

New Privacy Interface

Now, whenever and wherever you are controlling your privacy on Facebook, you will use the same standardized privacy interface. Whether you're editing the visibility of a photo album or restricting who can see your contact information, you'll see this:

About a year ago, we told you about an upcoming site redesign, and asked you to check out our preview group. We received great feedback from that group, so right now, we wanted to let you know about some changes that we're working on, and invite you to check out some previews in a new Facebook Page.

The big project at Facebook these days is a redesign of Profiles. As more and more information is available on Facebook—more photo albums, more applications, and more history—we've realized that profiles have become cluttered and harder to navigate as a result. We're trying to make profiles more simple and relevant, while still giving you control over your profile and how you express yourself. We want to invite you to keep up with our design and iteration on the new Facebook Profiles Preview Page.

On the Preview Page, you can check out some screen shots of our starting points: tabbed profiles which allow a certain amount of structure for things like basic info and personal info; a Wall tab where your Wall posts, recent activity, and other content can be published; and additional tabs where you can feature your favorite applications.

If you choose to become a fan of Facebook Profiles Previews, you'll receive weekly updates about the current state of the Profile. We'll be posting updated screen shots about once a week as well.

As for feedback, we realized last year that we had trouble keeping up with the discussion boards in the preview group. So instead, we've turned off the discussion boards and are asking that you send feedback directly to us, where we can easily sort through your comments. We'll provide info on what people are saying and try to answer any questions that come up a lot.

Check out the Profiles Preview Page now.


Carolyn is Facebook's resident blogger.