Websense To Monitor Facebook Pages

Today Websense released what is touted as the first security application for Facebook, developed via its recently acquired Defensio brand. Facebook users can now monitor their pages for unwanted content, including spam comments, profanity, and links to malware. This could be valuable for companies that want to control their online images and brands.Facebook users add the application, choose which settings to activate, and receive alerts when content is posted that violates their policies. Besides monitoring for profanity and spam comments, users can disallow links based on URL categories. All URLs are scanned in real time and compared with Websense's URL database.

Carl Mercier, Websense director of software development and Defensio founder, says the company has been monitoring pages of celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Oprah, and Jay-Z, to test the product. To date, Defensio has detected profanity, links to malware sites, and spam comments on Lady Gaga's page as well as the pages of many other celebrities. Besides safeguarding the reputations of page owners, the tool can help protect users of the social network site.

While privacy advocates may worry, Websense says the activities of users are not tracked, monitored, or analyzed. Only the content posted is reviewed, and the Defensio product cannot identify users.

Currently free during beta, the Facebook application will remain free for individual users while there will be a charge for business or high-volume pages. Pricing and definition of what constitutes a business or high volume page has not been finalized.

Check out the Defensio demo video via YouTube:

Tell me what you think on twitter, @adamely