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Most of us are aware of the dangers associated with posting lewd and inappropriate pictures to Facebook. But what about the many family friendly photos you upload to your profile? Thanks to a relatively new Facebook decision, not even your well-thought-out profile pictures are safe. Cheryl Smith, a consultant who blogs at Culture Smith Consulting, raised the alarm today after her husband was served up an ad for “Hot Singles” complete with her picture!

How is this so? By default, Facebook users have been opted into a new Facebook Ads program which places your image in select advertisements based on partnerships (read a profitable selling of your likeness) that Facebook has made.

According to Facebook:

Facebook occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user’s friends to create Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends.

While most users would be OK with their likeness being used to advertise a product that they are a fan of on Facebook like Snickers or the World Wildlife Fund; fewer would likely be happy to see their profile picture being used to pimp dating services and the like.

Fortunately it’s very easy to opt out of this asinine decision by visiting the “News Feed and Wall” section of your Facebook settings. Cheryl Smith, the aforementioned “Hot Single,” has more detailed opt out instructions available for those who need them.

For a company that was just criticized for calling dibs on everything posted to Facebook; enabling this feature for advertisers, especially without an announcement to users, flies in the face of its attempts to work with users for an agreeable environment.

If you don’t want to end up with a slew of vulgar wall posts or having your boss and coworkers think you model for singles dating websites on the side, you best opt out pronto!

Clarification: There are many innocent uses of your profile picture by Facebook that fall under this opt out form including using your profile picture on Fan Pages and on Fan modules (like the one to the right of this article). The trouble comes when Facebook lets a company advertising “Hot Singles” use your profile picture because you have not taken steps to become a fan of “Hot Singles” like you would for WalletPop or any other company with a fan page on Facebook.

1. Facebook was launched in 2004 by 19- year-old Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, who studied computer science, as a way to communicate more effectively with friends, family and coworkers.

2. The social networking tool has been banned in Iran prior to its June 12 presidential election, according to the Telegraph of the United Kingdom.

3. It has more than 200 million active users, more than 100 million log on each day and the fastest growing demographic are users 35 years old and older.

4. It has headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. but has U.S. offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, New York and Venice Beach, Calif. along with international offices in Dublin, Ireland and London.

5. It takes a few people to make the tool successful. The company has more than 850 employees.

6. Pakistani citizens are using the social networking tool to help combat terrorism, according to a recent article in the Times Online of the United Kingdom.

7. The average user has 120 friends on the site and more than 20 million users update their status each day.

8. More than 850 million photos, 8 million videos and 1 billion pieces of content are shared each week.

9. Around 70 percent of users are outside the U.S.

10. More than 30 million active users access Facebook through their mobile device.

Hi5, the third largest social networking site in the world,  has recently laid off almost 15 percent of its employees, a move to cut expenses in this gloomy economic condition where industries from all sectors including the Internet field have been experiencing dramatic financial slow down.

According to a high ranking official of the company, this move is an attempt to cut expenses in order to survive in this global economic crisis which had caused even the proud Wall Street to stumble upon its feet.

According to the latest figure, the company has also experienced low rates of unique visitors which had also forced some major sponsors to pull out their commercials and other kinds of advertisement posted in the webpage.

The reason for the financial throes experienced by most social network sites is the low advertising revenue which is just a domino-effect of a weak economic condition.  Since most companies from all sectors are tightening their belt, advertising costs have been greatly reduced to reduce burn rates and limit expenses.

In a statement released by the company’s vice-president in marketing department Mike Trigg, “the move is a pragmatic decision in order to survive in this ever-changing environment, and in order for a business to grow, restructuring should be done in the company.”

Meanwhile a source who asked for anonymity had said that most of the people who had been laid off came from HR and Design department.

According to a recent survey, Hi5 ranks third from the most popular social network sites.  The top placer is Facebook and then closely followed by MySpace, both of which have been considered as the most popular community sites in North America.