Admired for your good looks... What more could you ask for, right? Then again, it might not seem so glamorous if the ones staring at you were complete strangers, using a Web site available to anyone in the world as binoculars. "A new phenomenon has popped up," said Nick O'Neill of AllFacebook, an unofficial blog about the social networking site. "Lonely guys [are] making websites about girls that they don't even know after finding their photos on Facebook. These sites are nothing short of stalker-ish." Facebook has long been considered a safer place than its larger rival MySpace because Facebook only permits friends to see the content users post. But if photos are copied from a private network and uploaded to an entirely different website, security loses its meaning. That's the dilemma often faced now that new sites are dedicated to finding and showing off photos of "the hottest girls on Facebook." Mr. O'Neill said that he believes most of the photos on such sites are used without permission of the young women in them, an action he thinks should be criminal. "Something about the grouping of these photos makes it feel wrong even if it isn't illegal," he said. Facebook's terms of use state that users are responsible for the photos that they upload to the site, but strictly disallows obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit content. One of the sites hosting the reposted photos, FBChicks.com, explained the idea behind creating the site. "The goal of FBChicks is to eliminate the pain in browsing a multitude of websites," states the site's "about" page. It goes on to explain that the creators' idea was to compile party pictures all in one place for easy viewing. The Web site, which was once shut down due to a legal complaint according to Mr. O'Neill, asks visitors to submit photos that they own the rights to and include geographic information so that images received can be organized. For women who unknowingly appear on the website, FBChicks states that their photos are included because a user pretending to be them e-mailed their image to the site. "It's easy to get your picture removed from the site if you didn't send it in.... We will get rid of it with no questions asked," they state, providing an e-mail address for inquiries. Another site, titled "Hottest Girls on Facebook," also contains links to pictures of women from Flickr and MySpace. The sites don't post pornography, in line with Facebook's terms of use, but instead of only relying on models or celebrities, the suggestive photos consist of ordinary people, occasionally without their knowledge. "I do not know any of the people I post about," writes the site's manager, Brock Landers, on the "about" page. He states that those in the photos can also contact him for removal and apology. Mr. Landers said he wanted to use the site, which began operation October last year, to help young women launch modeling careers and get publicity. "This site is intended for two things: laughter and amazement," he wrote. "We have not been asked to shut down the website," said Mr. Landers. "In fact we've gotten some emails from some of the girls thanking us for posting them on the site." Not all, however, are so grateful. "I saw... a Web site that collects girls pictures from Facebook and makes them available to everyone,"" Zeynep 0xD6rnek told the Turkish Daily News in a February 13 article by Sevim Song0xFCn. 0xD6rnek, a Facebook user herself, said she immediately improved the security of her profile with the site's privacy options. Facebook allows for multiple security choices on photo albums posted by users. Users can opt not to show specific albums in limited profiles which are accessible to only those they select. In addition, the visibility of the album can be altered so photos are only shown to a select group of friends. There are hundreds of universal Facebook groups requesting photos of the "hottest girls" on the site and even a few listing the "hottest" and on occasion "the sweetest" guys. The difference between these Facebook groups and full websites, however, is that users willingly join the groups and add their own pictures. That's usually not the case outside the site. "If I were a dad of one of these girls I'd be furious at my daughter for posting these pictures on Facebook, not the guy who posted them on his site," Mr. Landers said. "Guys are guys, and all guys (at least heterosexual guys) like pictures of attractive women, even dads." 0x2013 Harrison Keely, intern, The Washington Times

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