Facebook is increasingly running into trouble, thanks to its skewed business practices. Today Wall Street Journal reported that it had identified as part of its investigation, that a number of Facebook apps were providing advertisers with information that makes a user of a profile easily identifiable.
As part of the investigation, 10 Facebook apps were looked at including Farmville and Texas HoldEm Poker. These apps were found to send out the Facebook number which is unique to every profile. With that number any bot or a advertiser can retrieve a user’s profile and other information as most of the profiles are set to be shared with “everyone”.
WSJ was able to narrow down on 25 firms that were being sent Facebook IDs which were used to build profiles of web users. What was more surprising was that even at the strongest privacy settings, information was being sent out to these firms. Facebook does have strong rules concerning privacy which require app developers to have measures and checks in place that prevent data transfer to outside firms.
Facebook admitted that user ids may have been shared from the user’s Internet browser or a Facebook application. In a statement Facebook said, “We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms”.
As a concern Facebook said it will soon introduce new technology that will stop the problem.
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