It appears as if Facebook is proactive in protecting names and likenesses (a little more so due to royalty in this instance I’d imagine).

For majority of the people on Facebook, the perpetual debate on security and privacy seems inconsequential, unless of course you get stung by a famacide impostor… at which point you start taking the issue of privacy more seriously. Only a handful of the hundreds of people on my friends list on Facebook have hardened the privacy settings on their profile. Considering that the (limited) settings interface on Facebook is very simple and intuitive, I can only conclude that people do not bother tweaking the privacy settings for two reasons; 1) They don’t feel at risk so no need to bother with the effort; 2) They are intrigued by the possibility of making new and interesting friends. After all Facebook connects you to strangers across the world and strangers are just friends (possibly more) waiting to happen right? So why bother locking down your profile and thereby reducing the chances of your next friend or partner finding you.

In any case, the general lack of vigilance is alarming. I have some pretty smart friends on Facebook, who consistently demonstrate super levels of alertness in the real world but are equally imprudent when it comes to Facebook. Social networking is a relatively new concept and for most peoples the general awareness of possible consequences is just not good enough when you consider that nowadays any person with nefarious intent and access to a computer and the internet can get to your network of friends and family and attempt to defame you.

In my opinion, both public and private social networks have a strong responsibility to educate, protect and support their user communities and Facebook just isn’t doing enough in terms of prevention, detection or correction.

Prevention mechanisms against impostor profiles don’t seem to exist. Anyone could create a fake profile and impersonate somebody else with malicious intent. If Facebook takes the profile down, another one could pop up immediately. There is no way to validate the integrity and identify of the person creating a profile and also there is no inteligent process to verify profiles that have been created (especially from a different location) with the same name, photo and other personal information matching a profile that already exists.
Facebook would argue that the general trend in social networking shows people moving away from greater levels of privacy but the point is that the option to enhance privacy at a preventive level should still be made available to everyone.

Automatic detection of copy cat profiles is not possible. It is fully dependant on a user raising the alarm. But what if you don’t know that someone else is impersonating you? It could be too late before the impostor profile is detected and shutdown.

The process for corrective action can take too long and for the victim, it can feel like having to writing a letter to Santa to put the fire out in your house. Reporting the fake profile doesn’t necessarily guarantee removal so you have to somehow convince your connections that you are being impersonated. Also you have no communication or acknowledgement that the concern you have raised is being looked at and what stage of investigation (if any) it’s in.

Surely things can only get better? Who knows?! What I do know is that I have to change my mindset to stay safe and not just rely on the basic Facebook privacy and security features.

Unfortunately for this client there are nude pages that are up, and other fan pages with well over 10,000 fans. Ugh, you’d think that FB would jump all over taking down the nude ones, but nope, they’re still there.

btw – just reported that other profile as well.

Not sure if you saw it or not, but this happened to me last year. In some ways, it happened twice. The one using my real name and photo was live for a few months until I found it. I reported it to Facebook, and had others do the same, to no avail. I had to go the unconventional route and sift through my email contacts to find someone who knew people at Facebook. We’re luckier than 99% of people in that we can do that.

The profile impersonating me had taken many of the images ranking for my name in G Images to populate a “my pics” album. The profile said I was from Los Angeles (not even close) and went to “the University of London.” It had 56 friends. I couldn’t see all of its information, due to not being its friend, but I could see enough. It gained “favourite quotes” and some other information. I have no idea why someone would want to do this – I haven’t been active in the SEO world in the way I used to be for over two years and have no idea who else I could have pissed off or ingratiated myself to to warrant something like that.

The response from Facebook annoyed me, however – I was passive aggressively scolded for going through my contact rather than reporting it through the site. The email, of course, didn’t allow me to reply to say that I *had* reported the fake profile, and other had done so as well.

There was also that one that used Lisa Myers’ and my photograph, but at least it didn’t also use our names! I doubt they do remove fake profiles, since the one using mine and Lisa’s photograph is still live, and is obviously fake, and has been reported: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1749121671&sk=friends

I fully believe that if I had not gone the personal route, the profile that used my name, false information and 30+ pictures would still be there.