{"id":3913,"date":"2010-10-24T20:19:50","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T00:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2022-12-30T15:43:26","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T20:43:26","slug":"facebook-privacy-fail-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/facebook-privacy-fail-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Privacy Fail Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Facebook\u00a0-Updated 11-01-10- <\/strong>Facebook<\/a> has completed its internal investigation into reports<\/a> from The Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a> that Facebook applications were violating its user privacy. The WSJ says FB is sharing unique user IDs with advertising agencies and data collection companies. According to the firm’s blog<\/a>, some developers were sharing Facebook UIDs with data brokers for a fee, “this violation of our policy is something we take seriously,” Facebook engineer Mike Vernal wrote in the corporate response.<\/p>\n

The Social Networker is reportedly taking action against developers who violated the Facebook policies by “instituting a 6-month full moratorium on their access to Facebook communication channels, and we will require these developers to submit their data practices to an audit in the future to confirm that they are in compliance with our policies” according to the corporate blog.<\/p>\n

The blog also states that Facebook has struck a deal with Rapleaf<\/a> (Which I wrote about here<\/a><\/em>), the data-mining firm that has tied Facebook ID information collected by Facebook applications to a database of Internet users it sold. “Rapleaf has agreed to delete all UIDs in its possession, and they have agreed not to conduct any activities on the Facebook Platform (either directly or indirectly) going forward<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

—<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last May Facebook<\/a> was caught<\/a> using “referrers” to send users’ ID information to advertising agencies every time the users click on ads. In response, the social networker changed some of the code that allowed this and issued a half-hearted apology. Now, the Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a> has found<\/a> that third-party applications or “apps” on Facebook have been guilty of the same thing.\u00a0 The WSJ<\/em> says the privacy breach affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a>“Apps” are pieces of software that let Facebook’s 500 million users play games or share common interests with one another. The company says 70% of users use apps each month. The WSJ<\/em> found that all the 10 most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users’ IDs to outside companies including:<\/p>\n