Facebook is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it’s great to keep in touch with friends and family; on the other hand, what used to be a fairly private service is now becoming increasingly public.

Openbook acts as a demonstration of this. This service allows you to search facebook status updates published to the Internet every day – statuses may people don’t realize are public to this extent. The site considers itself less of a tool for people’s use and more of a way of making a point. To quote their About page, “Our goal is to get Facebook to restore the privacy of this information, so that this website and others like it no longer work.”

The service makes this point by pointing out a number of embarrassing/dangerous potential searches to try out, including “I hate my boss,” “lost my virginity,” “my dui” and the always classic “I’m not racist but.”

As it turns out people say really stupid things on Facebook. Things they’d probably prefer not be public knowledge.

Of course, aside from the point this app was designed to make, there are a few potential uses to an app like this. You could find out if people are talking about you, finding out how your writing is spreading or what kind of rumors are out there. You could use it to see what people are saying about current trends, or to get real-time reactions to current events.

But the app is primarily meant to make a point, and a good one at that: Facebook’s security settings are changing so fast people don’t realize it. In some cases it could end up hurting them.

Features

• Search public Facebook statuses.
• Teaches people the problems with Facebook’s ever-changing privacy settings.
• Exposes various embarrassing statements.
• Similar tool: Zesty Facebook Privacy Checker.

Check out OpenBook @ www.youropenbook.org (via StartUpMeme)