It doesn’t take long for a student to glance over someone’s shoulder during class to find a classmate browsing through pictures, updating their status or chatting with friends on Facebook. In total, over 52,000 people have joined Facebook’s Stanford network, yet it is unlikely that most of those users have read or are even aware of the change in the social networking giant’s privacy policy.

Unless users have since altered their privacy settings, Facebook’s new privacy policy, which was introduced over three months ago, made several profile fields open to view to anyone on the Web. This information includes an individual’s profile pictures, full name, location, friends, networks and fan pages.

In other changes, Facebook eliminated regional networks that grouped users by location and now only classifies individuals based on schools or companies. Facebook now automatically reveals your current city as public information unless that field is deleted completely.

Users now choose between “recommended” settings that make information, like photos, available to the public, “friends of friends” or “everyone,” unless privacy settings are tailored individually.

Tara Jones ‘10 is one of those currently in Facebook’s Stanford network who is very conscious of her online presence. She said she was shocked when she learned in her Media Processes and Effects class that the content of a social networking profile could remain online after deleting an account.

“I remember sitting in lecture after learning this and actually being terrified,” Jones said. She said she is especially conscious of information exposure because of the effect it could have on any future employers who may see her profile and judge.

“I have heard of employers who have decided between two prospective employees by comparing their Facebook pages,” she said.

But Stanford communication professor Fred Turner thinks that many students believe that they are entitled to a level of privacy that social networking sites don’t actually provide.

Turner taught Communication 120: Digital Media in Society last spring before the policy change and asked his students how many had read Facebook’s privacy policy. Of the 120 students in the class who used Facebook, only two had read the privacy policy.

“I explained to them that even regardless of the privacy policy, your friends can circulate your data without your will,” Turner said. He demonstrated this by accessing his teenage daughter’s profile page during class, a move that prompted immediate discussion among his students.

“They were so angry, and they thought I was the worst father out there,” he said.

The changes in Facebook’s privacy policy are detailed in over 5,000 words in eight separate sections online. One section entitled “How we share information” describes “risks inherent in sharing information.” The section goes on to detail how an individual’s private information can be compromised by friends who can share data with Facebook applications as well as the risks inherent with weak login passwords.

Turner compares users’ privacy misperception of Facebook to that of the property of a mall.

“Some spaces are thought of as social when in fact they are actually corporate,” Turner said. “Malls have a different legal structure than that of a public square or town.”

Charlene Li, of consulting firm Altimeter Group and co-author of the book “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” said Facebook asks for permission to publish certain information but doesn’t remind users of its policy frequently enough. Currently Facebook hosts a “Facebook Site Governance” page in which the company announces its website changes and where users can provide feedback.

“They do a good job telling people what’s going on, but people forget,” Li said.

Li acknowledged that public views of privacy boundaries do change.

“If you remember when caller ID first appeared, people were disturbed that someone knew who they were before they picked up the phone,” she said. “Those perceptions changed. Now people are suspicious to pick up the phone when someone has blocked caller ID.”

For students like Stephanie Vezich ’10, the privacy change doesn’t concern her—and she hasn’t changed her online habits.

“I don’t really have many embarrassing things there to begin with,” Vezich said.

A Facebook press release indicated that the site has over 400 million active users, over half of which log onto the site each day. It’s also estimated that users upload three billion photos to the site every month.

Of those user numbers, there are some dedicated Facebook users who provide feedback to the company. The initial post first announcing the December 9 private policy change has received over 3,000 comments from users. It’s not clear how or even if the company has responded to each concern.

Dong Liu ’10 is aware of the policy change, but has not read the new guidelines.

“I think about internet privacy from time to time,” said Liu, a media studies co-term. “But since we’re willing to put ourselves on the social networking sites, to a certain extent we have to acknowledge that some of this information will be seen by other people.”