Facebook in Privacy Breach

Facebook in Privacy Breach

online.wsj.com

Many of the most 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, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

"A Facebook user ID may be inadvertently shared by a user's Internet browser or by an application," the spokesman said.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
news.yahoo.com

If you've been afraid that Facebook is data mining you, fear no more. It turns out that it may not be Facebook at all, but your farm on Farmville that is the culprit! Or maybe you play Texas Hold 'Em poker and it turns out that your poker face had a few more tells than you were aware of?

Most of this appears to be fairly harmless, but one vendor for Facebook apps and games, RapLeaf Inc. was selling the data they mined to several outside sources.

RapLeafs statement? "We didn't do it on purpose." Classic.

I know that there are a plethora of opinions about Facebook, especially since ATS took the social networking plunge recently. And that this will, undoubtedly, add content to that debate. But inquiring minds do want to know, in detail, so that we can take steps to avoid being data mined out of all of our privacy.

The ironic thing... In order to research Facebooks "oops" I had to use Google.

~Heff

Edited to add: Facebook does appear to be taking measures to correct these behaviors and is blocking these applications as they find them.



online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Yeah, and facebook is allowed to sell your photos, read the terms and conditions.
Some girl in england or something tried to sue facebook for selling her photo to a porn site but she lost because she agreed to the terms and conditions.

Originally posted by Hefficide



If you've been afraid that Facebook is data mining you, fear no more. It turns out that it may not be Facebook at all, but your farm on Farmville that is the culprit! Or maybe you play Texas Hold 'Em poker and it turns out that your poker face had a few more tells than you were aware of?

Most of this appears to be fairly harmless, but one vendor for Facebook apps and games, RapLeaf Inc. was selling the data they mined to several outside sources.

RapLeafs statement? "We didn't do it on purpose." Classic.

I know that there are a plethora of opinions about Facebook, especially since ATS took the social networking plunge recently. And that this will, undoubtedly, add content to that debate. But inquiring minds do want to know, in detail, so that we can take steps to avoid being data mined out of all of our privacy.

The ironic thing... In order to research Facebooks "oops" I had to use Google.

~Heff



online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Does greed know no bounds? Unbelievable what corporation will stupe to nowadays just
to get their hands on money. Ironic is that it's that very attitude that turns people off from
buying things from the corporation that do those things. Then they wonder why the
economies are crashing.

Speaking of Facebook and applications...why is the link to Facebook from ATS handled by a php page? You can see the link is this:

gotofacebook.php

Why isn't it just a direct link like this:

facebook.com/atsnews

Just an observation I would like an answer to.

Ive just posted and shared the original article on Facebook. I dont use the applications personally and Im fed up telling people not to use or send them to me.

The strange thing is, their terms and conditions displayed if you want to use an application actually tell you that your are giving them permission to share your info and the info of all your friends. people dont read anymore, they just click to enable them to go search for food on farmville !!

Thanks for the post, maybe now they will listen, probably not !

P.S. guess Im now barred from facebook for posting.

Respects

reply to post by Mr. D


q1 what is the pa / pcm subscription fee for using facebook ? q2 what is facebooks operating costs ?

Thanks all for replying thus far!

reply to post by CHA0S


That is an interesting point! Hopefully somebody more knowledgeable about these things will help us out with an answer to that - though my initial guess would be to avoid cookies.

To add a caveat here... I am a member of Facebook as well as ATS, am subscribed to the ATS page on Facebook and do support the joining of the two. A little personal disclosure!

I think it's a good partnership. But I also believe that Facebook is one of those things that one must keep a close watch on... that much traffic and money to be had makes for a lot of temptation.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide

Hopefully somebody more knowledgeable about these things will help us out with an answer to that

I am pretty knowledgeable on these things, the only person that can give us an answer is the person that wrote the code in that php file, or someone who knows what is in it. PHP can be used to do a vast amount of things, it's a very versatile language.

reply to post by littlecloud


I saw a case yesterday where a girl received a £82,000 payout from a porn company because they used her photo without permission on the cover of a DVD. Worse than this though, she is underage in the photo at only 14 years of age. The photograph is in no way erotic and was posted originally on Deviant art. Imagine what they could pull off Facebook? That's all the 'Girls Gone Wild' covers sorted for the next 10 years!

www.birminghammail.net...< br />
The new Facebook film annoys me too. Looks like it will be a bunch of people sitting around smelling their own farts enjoying themselves a little too much.

In other news the titanic has sunk and hitler is dead !

Originally posted by jonny2410

In other news the titanic has sunk and hitler is dead !

Yes, but neither of those events hit todays Wall Street Journal!

The story isn't Facebook data mining... it's that other companies were doing it, through games and apps, without Facebooks knowledge or consent.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


I don't have a problem with facebook,I won't join!

Originally posted by Hefficide
The story isn't Facebook data mining... it's that other companies were doing it, through games and apps, without Facebooks knowledge or consent.

~Heff

Everyone who uses Facebook apps whether it be playing a game or sending a smiley is aware that the apps ask for access to your friends lists etc before you can use the app. Facebook is more than aware (IMHO) that this type of data is going to be misused. It takes a thief to know a thief.

IRM

reply to post by Big Raging Loner


yeah i saw that too, its pretty disturbing..
I pray that my pictures dont turn up. hahaha
but it really makes you think of there agenda, putting that in there.
What do they get out of selling peoples photos, and to whom?
Also now that they auto detect peoples faces and ask you to tag them.
I smell a rat..

An update:

Congressmen demand Facebook explain privacy breach

A Democrat and Republican have written to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg asking him to explain what they call a "privacy breach".

The letter to Facebook follows a Wall Street Journal report which said all of the 10 most popular Facebook applications were transmitting unique user ID numbers to outside companies.

Those applications include Zynga's FarmVille, with 59 million users, Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille.

The information is being used to build detailed databases on people in order to track them online, the report said.

Source

So....

Is Congress really disgusted with this blatant and criminal data mining / invasion of privacy? Or are they just a bit envious at how easy it was to accomplish?

God knows how many black budget dollars goes towards cyber spying. I wonder if the good folks at the NSA realized that all it took was to offer people the opportunity to create a fake farm and then to compel them to check up on it, compulsively, ever few hours?

Well, if they didn't before.... They do now.

~Heff

I don't use the apps anymore. Usually, it's just mindless button clicking. Pretty pointless. I just use facebook to hook up with friends and family.