The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has attacked the social networking site Facebook and its former college student founder for what he says is its ''complete disregard'' for privacy.

Senator Conroy is under fire from many in the internet industry for his proposed mandatory net filter. He has previously attacked Google, a key critic of the filtering plan, but last night in a Senate estimates hearing turned his attention to Facebook.

''Facebook has also shown a complete disregard for users' privacy lately,'' Senator Conroy said in response to a question from a government senator.

''Facebook, I understand … was developed by Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg, who after breaking up with his girlfriend developed a website of all the photos from his yearbook so he and his mates could rank the girls according to their looks. An auspicious start for Facebook.''