Facebook's growth as an Internet social networking site has met criticism on a range of issues, especially the privacy of users, child safety, the use of advertising scripts, data mining, and the inability to terminate accounts without first manually deleting all the content. Many companies removed their adverts from the site in 2007 because they were being displayed on the pages of controversial individuals and groups. The actual content of user's pages, groups and forums has been criticized for promoting controversial topics such as pro-anorexia and holocaust denial. There have been several issues with censorship, both on and off the site. The changes made by Facebook have been criticized, in particular the new format launched in 2008 and the changes in Facebook's Terms of Use which removed the clause detailing automatic expiry of deleted content. Facebook has also been successfully sued several times for stealing intellectual property rights.
Facebook is a global social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better. The website's membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website currently has more than 300 million active users worldwide. Facebook has met with some controversy. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Syria, China, Vietnam, and Iran. It has also been banned at many places of work to discourage employees from wasting time using the service. Privacy has also been an issue, and it has been compromised several times. Facebook settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property.A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.