If you worry about who's read your posts on a Facebook group, now you can breathe easy. From today, Facebook groups will tell you—and the rest of the group's members—exactly who's read the post. Which is either useful, or incredibly creepy.
From now on, whenever an update is published on a Facebook group a running count of how many views it's had will appear below. When anyone with permission to view the post hovers over the counter, a drop down list will detail exactly who has seen the update. Eventually, it will say "Seen by everyone" if each group member has bothered to read it.
There's certainly a case for its implementation: it means that people can get an idea of who knows what, and should no doubt streamline conversations. In particular, it seems useful for groups that are used to arrange meetings or events.
There is, however, a slippery slope here. If such a feature ever made its way to the News Feed or users' Walls then... wow. Imagine keeping tabs on exactly who's seen a particular personal status update and you find yourself in a whole new world of neuroses. When TechCrunch asked Facebook about that possibility, a spokesperson explained that the Big Blue was "not going to discuss what we might (or might not) do in the future."
So, as it stands, perhaps these Facebook read receipts are a good thing for groups—but we'd rather it went no further. In the meantime, you're going to have to think of a new way to cover up, that doesn't involve missing a Facebook message. [Facebook via TechCrunch]