There are thousands of Facebook networks-for high schools, colleges, towns and cities and employers. There are even networks for the CIA and FBI, rather unremarkable considering that these agencies employ plenty of potential Facebook users. More remarkably, there is in fact a Facebook-like site called A-Space being used by the government to encourage correspondence between spies. Despite its security precautions, A-Space is still somewhat disturbing-the idea of federal agents trading classified information in cyberspace is disconcerting, potentially extra-legal and more than a little bizarre. A CNN article quotes an intelligence official who says that A-Space will be helpful for procuring new Al Qaeda videos. Considering the media's tendency to compare the program to Facebook, this idea seems particularly funny. Imagine the newsfeed: "Osama Bin Laden posted a new video at 5:25 p.m."

Sort of puts our own Facebook concerns into perspective, doesn't it? Try telling that to the legions of Facebook users who opened the site Wednesday to find that "new Facebook," the redesigned version of the site that first appeared several months ago, is now the only Facebook. Having learned from past instances of user dissatisfaction after major changes, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg made at least some effort to include users in the transition, allowing access to the new Facebook before it became permanent and soliciting feedback and suggestions about how to improve it.

That window has passed, however. Open Facebook today and you'll find the wall mixed with the newsfeed and information and applications hidden behind tabs. A search for "new Facebook" brings up several groups with a million-plus members each, all of them opposed to the changes. A group called Petition Against the "New Facebook" puts forth a very rational proposal: Let users decide which layout to use, as they could prior to this week. This idea highlights an important aspect of the new design-that a new design is all it is, an aesthetic change without any substantial new features or usability enhancements. After weeks of feedback, assuming users gave any, new Facebook looks the same as the day it first appeared, and it works the same way it has for years.

Social networking sites are unique as a means of communication because they are, in essence, entire virtual worlds controlled by single companies. Facebook is arguably as prevalent among and widely used by college students and young Americans as cell phones and e-mail. However, it is fundamentally different from these tools because there is no cross-compatibility in the world of social networking; one can choose between MySpace and Facebook, but the two can't connect.

Telephones and e-mail clients work similarly and change little over time. Consumers have a choice of which one to use, knowing, for example, that a person with Verizon and Gmail can call or e-mail someone who has AT&T and Hotmail. The problem, of course, is that Facebook users don't control Facebook. Its real owners are intent on changing and "improving" it, and it seems like that's just the way it is. The solution may be starting groups and petitioning Facebook to let us its users have a choice. It also may be admitting that a profile, something that seems so personal and private, is subject to the whims of a corporation.

Facebook should recognize that the millions of users who consider it a technology nearly as crucial as the telephone are very sensitive to change. Facebook should tone down its drive to redesign for the sake of redesigning. More importantly, however, Facebook users should recognize the inherent hazard of a service owned and monopolized by a single organization. The more we invest in Facebook, the more of our social life depends on a young and changing system, and the more outraged we become when it changes.

Which brings me back to A-Space. Facebook has a knack for ferreting out the whiners and wailers among its constituents. It's the easiest thing in the world to form a new group. People are always advocating something over Facebook. Let's imagine these would-be lobbyists doing their thing on a network that might very well contain state secrets-an idea that doesn't rise easily to mind, I hope. At least the information that now risks being obscurity behind some ill-designed tab won't get anyone killed. Let's just remember how little really is at stake here.