Students' chat site worrisome

"Unlike other sites like MySpace, where the info is available to over 20 million people, on Facebook a user's profile is available at most to a few thousand people who already share in that person's 'real-world community,' " Hughes said.

Zach Davis, a junior at BYU, has 70 BYU friends in his Facebook.com community. Through his connections, Davis can post messages on other people's "walls" and can read messages left for his friends on their sites. Davis said he gets onto his Facebook profile two or three times each day and can spend up to an hour a day messaging his friends.

"I don't know what the draw is about it, it's just kind of funny. You write stupid messages to your friends and you kind of do it in between homework as a break," he said.

Davis doesn't post his phone number or address on his profile, although the site gives him that option. Giving out that personal information felt "sort of weird," he said.

Many students do list information ranging from cell phone numbers to full class schedules, a trend that caught the eye of the Utah Attorney General's Internet Crimes Task Force.

Although Facebook.com does require a .edu e-mail address, task force section chief Chris Ahearn said accessing such an account is as easy as waiting for a student in a library not to log off after using a computer.

"If someone's a predator that's looking for potential victims, I believe that it's relatively easy to get around any of those safeguards," he said. "The object of these things is to post a bunch of personal information, and I don't feel there's a safe way to do that."

Some bishops of BYU student wards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have instructed students to be cautious about using the site, and some have gone so far as to encourage students not to use Facebook at all.

Bishop Richard Lytle said he hasn't told his students to avoid Facebook entirely but did give them guidelines on how to post appropriate material. The LDS Church has not taken a stance on Facebook.com.

"There's a tendency to go overboard to be fun or funny, and sometimes it can get between you and your values," Lytle said. "It's the anonymity. It's not a person-to-person thing — it's a video screen."

Facebook is available to students at most of Utah's public and private universities, except Snow College, Dixie State, College of Eastern Utah and Salt Lake Community College.

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