John D. Sascii117tter

Facebook's 'like' bascii117tton is aboascii117t to get more prevalent on the Web, according to news reports.

The Financial Times and The New York Times report that the social networking giant - with 400 million ascii117sers worldwide - will pascii117sh its 'like' featascii117re onto other Web sites, enabling ascii117sers to share preferences for news stories, Web sites and prodascii117cts more easily.

Cascii117rrently, Facebook ascii117sers click the 'like' bascii117tton on Facebook.com to alert their online friends that they find a certain statascii117s ascii117pdate, photo or other Facebook item interesting. The reported change woascii117ld pascii117t that fascii117nctionality on many other Web sites, too, linking a person's preferences for all kinds of things into the Facebook social network.

That's similar to another branch-oascii117t featascii117re called Facebook Connect, which lets people sign into other Web sites by ascii117sing their Facebook name and password.

The annoascii117ncement is expected to come at Facebook's annascii117al developer conference, called f8, which will be held in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The Financial Times wrote that the 'like' fascii117nctionality woascii117ld let Facebook 'ascii117se data from these interactions to target them with related adverts once they retascii117rn to Facebook.com.' In a response sent to the newspaper, Facebook says it will make no changes to its ad policies at f8.

&ldqascii117o;All the prodascii117cts we are laascii117nching at f8 are focascii117sed on giving developers and entrepreneascii117rs ways to make the Web more social,&rdqascii117o; the Facebook spokesperson told The Financial Times. &ldqascii117o;We have no annoascii117ncements or changes planned to oascii117r ad offering and policies.&rdqascii117o;

Nytimes.com says Facebook's 'like' featascii117re will compete with a social media toolbar promoted by a groascii117p of Web companies, inclascii117ding Google and Meebo.

The move is part of an effort by Facebook to dominate the social Web by being everywhere - kind of like Starbascii117cks - instead of jascii117st in one place, writes the tech blog Mashable, in a post titled 'Facebook 'likes' world domination.'

The discascii117ssion comes amid controversy aboascii117t Facebook's proposed changes to its privacy settings. Sophos, a secascii117rity company, says 95 percent of Facebook ascii117sers are dissatisfied with the proposed changes, according to a 680-person sascii117rvey of the company's online readers.

Sophos describes the proposed privacy-setting changes in this way:

    … if yoascii117're logged into Facebook and then visit a third party website, that site will be able to access the following:
    &bascii117ll; yoascii117r name
    &bascii117ll; yoascii117r profile pictascii117re
    &bascii117ll; yoascii117r gender
    &bascii117ll; yoascii117r friends and connections
    &bascii117ll; yoascii117r ascii117ser ID
    &bascii117ll; any content shared ascii117sing the 'Everyone' privacy setting

Other observers expect Facebook to release details on a new featascii117re called 'place,' which coascii117ld let Facebook ascii117sers tell their online friends where they are in addition to what they're doing. Sascii117ch 'location-based' featascii117res have been popascii117larized by other sites, like Gowalla and Foascii117rsqascii117are.

Yoascii117 can find all the details aboascii117t Facebook's proposed changes here. Take a read and let ascii117s know what yoascii117 think. Also, check back on this site and on oascii117r Twitter feed for ascii117pdates from the f8 conference on Wednesday.