Cindy Swanson, CyberSnoop: The Case of the Costly Social Networking Site?

Is Facebook planning on charging 4.99 a month to use the site?

Listen to CyberSnoop: The Case of the Costly Social Networking Site?

Is Facebook planning to start charging its users?

If you’re one of the millions of people who uses Facebook, you’ve probably already seen some of your friends on the site joining groups like “We're leaving Facebook if they try to charge us,” along with statements like “Invite all your friends and together we can make a stand.” Initially, even clicking on such statements would lead users to a virus that would harm their computer.

Most of the rumors claim that Facebook is going to start charging 4 dollars and 99 cents a month, starting June 30th of 2010.

However, both Snopes.com and urbanlegends.com say this simply isn’t true.

According to urbanlegends.com, and I quote: “While Facebook executives have never explicitly ruled out instituting fees for specific features of the site, they have repeatedly denied having any plans to impose a blanket charge on all users. Most recently the question was put to Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg in an April 2009 inverview with Business Week editor Stephen J. Adler.

Sandberg responded, "The answer is no, we are not planning on charging a basic fee for our basic services. Once again, that question stems from people thinking we're growing so quickly, we're running out of money. We're growing really quickly, but we can finance that growth. We're not going to charge for our basic services."

In my research for this CyberSnoop, I actually ran across a business article in which the author suggested Facebook start charging users in order to make a ton of money.

But it’s not happening now…and if it ever does, you can count on a lot of people un-friending the site. And that includes CyberSnoop!

Clearing up another internet rumor, this is Cindy Swanson, CyberSnoop…reminding you to check it out BEFORE you hit that “send” button!