Graph Search searches what Google can’t: Facebook users’ friends and friends of friends. It is not yet a rival to Google, which searches the web – although it may evolve to challenge web search in years to come. For the moment it primarily seeks to connect the dots within users’ own networks in a more meaningful and intuitive manner; and, currently, commentators aren’t sure what to make of it. “Should you be cynical, cautious or excited?” asks Sophos’ Paul Ducklin.
Given Facebook’s troubled history with privacy, caution certainly needs to be considered. At the launch, Facebook’s product director Tom Stocky gave an example. “For single people,” he said, “friends of friends tend to be a good start.” This demonstrates both the value and danger in Graph Search.
“With Graph Search,” explains ReadWrite Web, you can query the social network for phrases like "friends of my friends who are female, like 'Homeland' and are single" and get a custom-built singles search culled right from your own social graph. And since Facebook commands a pool of data as deep as it is wide, it has a lot of dirt on its one billion users – from the stuff they Like to the people they hang out with to their core demographic information like location, age, gender and sexual orientation.”
Dating will certainly become a major use Graph Search, and while it will be a boon for many singles – and certainly GLBT singles – it is not so clear that networkers will welcome being sought out by friends of their friends they know little or nothing about. Such concerns spurred NBC News to suggest ‘3 privacy settings to tweak before Facebook Graph Search rolls out’. “If you would rather not have your friends of friends be able to search for ‘single women in New York from Kansas who like Big Bang Theory’ and come up with your name, you'll want to take a closer look at your profile.”
The three recommended tweaks include preventing friends of friends from seeking you out; telling friends that you want a tagged photo of yourself removed (ironically, Graph Search may help you find what you don’t want to be found); and locking out friends of friends from your historical posts.
So, should you be cynical, cautious or excited, asks Ducklin? "Yes. A bit of all three,” he says. But watch out for the coming deluge of ‘Optimize your Graph Search ratings’ spam scams – and of course the evolution of Graph Search poisoning.