FarmVille (and others) 'Breaks' Facebook Privacy Rules, Sends Personal Info To Ad Firms

[Poll_Blind]

From Kotaku and Wall Street Journal:

Kotaku:

Dozens of Facebook applications, including Zynga's wildly popular casual games FarmVille, Mafia Wars and FrontierVille, transmit user data in violation of the social network's privacy settings, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ's investigation finds that apps like FarmVille have been transmitting identifying information to "dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies" that could grant advertisers and online tracking firms access to players' names—and the names of their Facebook friends. That includes Facebook users who have their profiles set to the most strict privacy settings.

Wall Steet Journal:

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.

The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook's rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users' activities secure.

--snip--

The apps, ranked by research company Inside Network Inc. (based on monthly users), include Zynga Game Network Inc.'s FarmVille, with 59 million users, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille. Three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user's friends to outside companies.

Most apps aren't made by Facebook, but by independent software developers. Several apps became unavailable to Facebook users after the Journal informed Facebook that the apps were transmitting personal information; the specific reason for their unavailability remains unclear.

Worth reading the whole Kotaku article (which is a nice summary) and then the WSJ article.

PB

[PVnRT]

1. K&R

[GeorgeGist]

2. quelle surprise

[Blue State Blues]

3. Priceless comment on the Kotaku article

What is this world coming to when you can't trust perfect strangers to protect the private data you willingly put on the internet from being sold to other perfect strangers by yet more perfect strangers for a profit?

[Scurrilous]

4. K & R

:thumbsup: