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Facebook has been quickly gaining on MySpace as the top social networking website.  However, MySpace has better luck capitalizing on site traffic while Facebook has struggled to make money through advertising.  As a way to reverse their fortunes, Facebook plans to start selling users’ personal information to market researchers.

With this new advertising venture, advertisers will be able to pose questions to a set of specially selected Facebook members.  The member may be subject to very personal questions, like marital status and sexual preferences.  The benefit to advertisers is that they will be able to build focus groups very quickly without the need to conduct traditional surveys.  The polling system was debuted to business owners at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Although advertisers may reap the benefits from this program, Facebook users may get turned off by this intrusion of privacy.  The momentum that they have gained on MySpace may be lost as their information is sold for profit. 

Read: [The Sydney Morning Herald]