Top Facebook Apps Violate Privacy Terms 95
cgriffin21 writes "No stranger to privacy concerns, Facebook is once again in the privacy spotlight, following a Wall Street Journal report that some popular Facebook applications leak personal information to advertisers. 'Many of the popular applications, or 'apps,' on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information — in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names — to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies,' according to The Wall Street Journal, which wrote about Facebook Sunday in the latest installment of its recent 'What They Know' series about advertising and the Internet."
I'm surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I'm surprised. Not at the fact that "private" data (in this case a UID that identifies a user that can be used to get their profile page and anything that they haven't hidden) has been released. No, I'm surprised at the fact that they are reporting it as an "inadvertent" release from the games and that people are shocked.
If Facebook let data slip to the games when they didn't mean to then that'd be news. The fact that games (which, lets face it, appear to rely on either a) horrible advertising or b) selling your details, because there's no other way they could make it so profitable) give out extra data to advertisers that Facebook policy says that they weren't meant to seems like just another day at the office for many of those time wasting game developers.
Re:Failbook is for Fucktards (Score:1, Interesting)
On the contrary.
Just yesterday some guy posted a picture on 4chan of a girl that he claimed he was fucking. This girl was wearing a cheerleader outfit that was emblazoned with the words “South” and her first name. The filename of the picture contained the Facebook user ID of another girl, who could be assumed to be on the same cheer squad. Her friends list was not public, but her first and last name, the girl from the picture’s first name, and the word “South” in a quick Google search yielded the high school’s name and the roster of the entire cheer squad. It was easy enough to find the Facebook profile of the girl in the picture... there were only 2 results for her name, and her profile picture was her in the same cheerleading uniform. OP shat brix, personal army ensued...
tl;dr: Facebook is an excellent way for fucktards to self-destruct. Don’t shut it down.