Facebook boss caught out by privacy change

SOCIAL NOTWORKING SITE Facebook has revamped its privacy rules, as we reported last week, but it is starting to look like its boss might be regretting the change. Candid snaps of founder Mark Zuckerberg have found their way onto the web.

Shots of Zuckerberg, tired and emotional and cuddling a teddy bear suddenly became accessible to public view. Other snaps show Zuckerberg vacationing in Lake Tahoe with his girlfriend and with various booth babes. There is even a topless shot, but alas it is of Zuckerberg rather than the booth babes.

The pictures might harm Zuckerberg's geeky but otherwise clean-cut image, which has already taken a battering after a controversial book, The Accidental Billionaires claimed that Zuckerberg started the social networking site as a way to pick up women and that he dined on a koala on the yacht of a Sun Microsystems executive.

While the snaps aren't as dire as they sound, the story is more that Zuckerberg has been captured by Facebook's own changes. Insecurity experts expect that a lot of people who thought their pictures were secret will also be caught out.

Zuckerberg's own profile was previously locked away from those who weren't on his friends' list but that changed after Facebook's privacy overhaul last week.

More than 300 photos of Zuckerberg have now been locked away again but not before Silicon Valley gossip blog Valleywag downloaded a selection and published them. µ