The latest “invite-all-your-friends” Facebook rumor is yet again centered around the popular social networking site claiming they will be charging a monthly fee.

There are numerous variations of the rumor out there, each claiming a different dollar value to be charged by a specific date. These groups and fan pages even go on to say that if a specific number of people join the page, Facebook will reconsider.

It’s pure bunk.

Here are a few examples of groups grabbing the interest and attention of well over 2 million people combined so far:

This one is quite funny actually, as it posts a proposed monthly fee of $14.99 and £14.99 – the same supposed monthly fee. Anyone who has paid any relative close attention to either economies will realize that there is quite the drastic different between the 2 amounts once converted to the same currency.

As of today, 1 British pound = ~1.6 U.S. dollars, making the claimed fee to US users actually $23.99 monthly.

The group creator also claims that Mark Zuckerburg will sell the site due to its popularity, and some mumbo jumbo about Facebook being 3 years old – all of which is untrue. The creator, Jordan Taylor, is a 14 year old kid from the UK, with obviously too little to do with his time as the news states

“has been saved thankyou and this was no hoax”

Additional groups and pages gathering way too many fans and members include:

NO, I WILL NOT PAY £3.99 A MONTH TO USE FACE BOOK FROM JULY 9TH 2010! – 417,000+ members joined

NO! I WILL NOT PAY $3.99/MONTH TO USE FACEBOOKK STARTING JULY 9, 2010! JOIN – 657000+ fans joined

NO ! I WILL NOT PAY $3.99 A MONTH TO USE FACE BOOK FROM APRIL 15TH 2010 – 18000 members joined
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Facebook has no intention of charging a basic monthly fee, let alone selling the network. Just this past Thursday January 21st, Facebook announced the ground breaking ceremony of their brand new, and extremely expensive, custom data center being built in Oregon. It is highly unlikely that any company is going to undergo a project such as this, with the supposed intention of selling within a few months.

In an April 2009 interview with BusinessWeek Editor-In-Chief Stephen Adler, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was asked and answered:

ADLER: Does Facebook plan on charging a membership fee? Over three-quarters of its users are going into a panic-induced assumption that this is true, even though there hasn’t been talk of a membership fee from the business press or Facebook itself. So can you calm the panic?

SANDBERG: The answer is no, we are not planning on charging a basic fee for our basic services. Once again, that question stems from people thinking we’re growing so quickly we’re running out of money. We’re growing really quickly, but we can finance that growth. We’re not going to charge for our basic services.

Based on Sandberg’s reply, it’s obvious that “basic service” use of Facebook will remain a free service. It does however leave the door open for the possibility of an upgraded paid membership service.

Keeping in mind that Facebook is a business, and adding a paid membership program is an extremely viable and sensible business option. In my personal opinion, such a program would be geared towards the marketing and commercial aspects that Facebook seems to be targeting lately.

More and more big business brands are seeing the lucrative advantage to using Facebook for their promotional marketing, as so far have been able to do so at zero cost. It is no wonder that Facebook would love to have a share in their windfall.

Would you be willing to pay a fee to use Facebook, if you were granted additional features? If so, leave us a comment below, including what additional features you would like to see added!