The Time Magazine's cover story for 31 May will feature Facebook and the controversial privacy issues it has raised.

The cover page titled "Facebook... and how it's redefining privacy" depicts a mosaic of about 1,300 profile photos from the social networking site, with a blurb on the story by Dan Fletcher, which says "With nearly 500 million users, Facebook is connecting us in new (and scary) ways."

The article attempts to go deeper into the methodologies used by Facebook to attract users, and also traces the development of privacy concerns around its features such as Open Graph and instant personalization, reports social media guide Mashable.

The rapidly growing social networking site is virtually the "world's third largest country" by population of users. It can become "the Web's sketchy Big Brother, sucking up our identities into a massive Borg brain to slice, dice and categorize for advertisers", concludes Fletcher.