Look out, Cornellians: Big Brother is watching. And his name is Mark Zuckerberg.

At the beginning of the month, Facebook announced that it will begin publicly listing user’s profiles on mainstream search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.

If that’s not an absolute invasion of privacy — and a betrayal of corporate trust — we’re not sure what is.

Facebook Corporate Communications claims the change is part of an effort to allow non-registered users to access profiles so they can find their friends and relatives.

But employers are increasingly using Facebook to help judge a job candidate’s “character,” to see if they are exercising “good judgment.” The National Association of Colleges and Employers reported that in 2006, 27 percent of employers registered with the organization admitted to Googling job candidates.

So you figure, you clean up your profile page, untag your questionable photos, or — if you’re really serious — edit your name by a couple of letters. But even this isn’t enough to halt some employers from using backhanded techniques to dig up digital dirt about your personal life. Facebook isn’t secure anymore, and there are ways to get around the privacy settings that we put up to save ourselves from parents, employers and overly-solicitous lab partners alike.

At an age when most of us are just trying to enjoy college, it’s unfortunate that we have to be so conscientious about our every move — and that Zuck feels the need to play the role of Main Cop. It’s the latest in a string of indications that Facebook isn’t the plucky upstart of a cultural phenomenon it was three years ago.

The Myspaceization of Facebook is clearly a ploy to increase the company’s profits and resale value. The most recent move makes it abundantly clear that Zuckerberg and his minions have free rein to make any change of any sort at any time in the way Facebook works. Facebook is an institution we love, and we want it to be successful — but not at the expense of the characteristics that define its genius. While Zuck seems cognizant and wary of the implications of this power, what he doesn’t seem to understand is that a false sense of online security is one of Facebook’s strongest points; Facebook can only play a brinkmanship game with users privacy for so long — before this dorm-room project becomes yesterday’s news.