Facebook has confirmed it is testing a feature that allows people to communicate privately with page owners, according to Inside Facebook.

This “Private Messages for Pages” feature would be beneficial for pages who would prefer to deal with customer service matters off of the public Wall. However, sending a private message does not generate a News Feed story, and if fans start to use the message feature to give a company praise or ask general questions, pages might miss out on the positive effects that would result from a person’s friends seeing the activity.

According to early screenshots, page owners will have the option whether or not to accept private messages. It appears people can use the messages feature whether they Like a page or not. Admins can exchange a series of messages with users, but pages cannot initiate private conversations with their fans or others unless the user has commented or made a post on the page.

In September, Facebook removed the “Send Update” feature that allowed pages to send messages to people who Like the page, but there has never been an easy option for users to directly contact page owners. With the page redesign in February, Facebook made it possible to feature page owners and link to their profile where users can send them a private message if the page owner allows it, but this has not been intuitive for users or admins.

We have not been able to access the beta ourselves, but Facebook confirms, “We are currently testing a feature that allows people and Pages to communicate privately. We have no further details to share at this time.”