Interesting. Certain Facebook apps (ahem, Farmville) are sharing user info. Maybe that big Jobs-Zuckerberg sit down two weeks ago was a scolding about privacy and user experience? Probably not. In any event the sharing goes against Facebook's own rules.
The report arrives this evening thanks to reporting done over at the Wall Street Journal. In their report, we learn that "tens of millions" of users could be affected, mostly thanks to popular apps created by Facebook games mega developer Zynga. Yes, virtual farmers, this includes your precious Farmville app!
The shared info includes Facebook user IDs, which advertisers and other tracking firms can use to look up user's names and other info on the social network. Oh, and even if you didn't use Farmville or Texas Hold'em, you are still vulnerable, as the breach allows third parties to view the friend lists of affected users and get your information that way. Swell!
Facebook has not yet responded to calls for comment, from the WSJ, CNET or otherwise. In the meantime, lock down those farms, people.
Labels: Facebook, Farmville, privacy, User Data, Zynga
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 10:10 AM
What do you do if you're the CEO of a company faced with persistent privacy concerns? If you're Mark Zuckerberg, you make it so users of your service can't block you. Mark Zuckerberg recently, mysteriously, became unblockable on Facebook.
TechCrunch highlights a funny single-serve website, blockzuck.com. Its only purpose: to point out that if you try to block Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook, thus hiding your profile from him, you are greeted with a "general block failed error." You can block anyone else on Facebook—you just can't block the Zuck!
But, according to the guy behind Blockzuck,com, (who prefers to remain anonymous) you used to be able to block Zuckerberg. He started Blockzuck.com to convince people to do just that, and had to update his site once Zuckerberg became unblockable. He told us in an email:
My original idea was to start some campaign to get people to block Zuckerberg on Facebook, as sort of a half-assed privacy protest. I came up with the idea after the last major privacy uproar, and decided to save it for the next one that came along, which was Places.
Until very recently, it *was* possible to block him; after I put up the original version of the site, I discovered that he couldn't be blocked anymore. Which is much more interesting than my original lame idea, so I updated the site to reflect that.
So, why did Mark Zuckerberg become unblockable on Facebook? Who knows. Maybe he or an engineer found out about Blockzuck.com and wanted to retaliate. Or maybe he just gets a kick out of creeping people out. I'm a creep... I'm a weirdo..., etc.
Labels: Facebook, privacy
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:10 AM
In a seven-page "Vision Statement" made in 2008, the top brass at Google is shown weighing their options between not being evil and keeping up with new companies selling user search and surfing data to advertisers.
Selling surfing and search data is becoming a huge business, allowing advertisers to get more and more targeted with their online ads. The more targeted the ad, the more likely someone is to click on it and the more an advertiser will pay. Obviously, as companies get more sophisticated with their tracking methods, this is going to become a bigger and bigger part of the online advertising business.
The leaked document, called a "brainstorming document" by people familiar with it, shows Google weighing its options between its prior insistence to avoid such practices at the behest of its founders and the reality of the industry right now, where new companies are doing things that Google could do much better and making a lot of money in the process.
With these new companies, such as BlueKai and eXelate Media, offering these tracking services and Google increasingly threatened by Facebook's skyrocketing traffic, they've got a lot of motivation to bend the definition of evil in their famous unofficial motto. We'll see how far they're willing to go. [
WSJ via
SlashDot]
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Labels: Google, privacy, sells used data
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:38 AM
