<p>Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a code to scan Facebook profiles, collected data not hidden by users' privacy settings, and compiled a list, which is now available as a downloadable file, containing the URL of every "searchable" Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID, the BBC reported on Thursday.<br /><br />Bowles said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook retorted by saying the information was already public.<br /><br />"People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want," the website said.<br /><br />"In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook." <br /><br />"No private data is available or has been compromised," Facebook said.<br />The list has already been downloaded by over 1,000 people on Pirate Bay, the world's biggest file-sharing website. <br /><br />One user, going by the name of "lusifer69", said the list was "awesome and a little terrifying".<br /><br />But internet watchdog Privacy International said Facebook had been given ample warning that something like this would happen.<br /><br />"Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it," Simon Davies, an official of Privacy International, said.<br /><br />"It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn't have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there's an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence, he said.<br /><br />Facebook hit 500 million users in June this year.</p>
<p>Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a code to scan Facebook profiles, collected data not hidden by users' privacy settings, and compiled a list, which is now available as a downloadable file, containing the URL of every "searchable" Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID, the BBC reported on Thursday.<br /><br />Bowles said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook retorted by saying the information was already public.<br /><br />"People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want," the website said.<br /><br />"In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook." <br /><br />"No private data is available or has been compromised," Facebook said.<br />The list has already been downloaded by over 1,000 people on Pirate Bay, the world's biggest file-sharing website. <br /><br />One user, going by the name of "lusifer69", said the list was "awesome and a little terrifying".<br /><br />But internet watchdog Privacy International said Facebook had been given ample warning that something like this would happen.<br /><br />"Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it," Simon Davies, an official of Privacy International, said.<br /><br />"It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn't have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there's an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence, he said.<br /><br />Facebook hit 500 million users in June this year.</p>