Around the Net

Social Nets Defend Practice Of Leaking Users Data

Already up against the wall over questionable privacy practices, Facebook is now being accused sending users' "personally identifiable" data to advertisers despite promising never to share such information "without your consent."

"Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers' names and other personal details, despite promises they don't share such information without consent," writes The Wall Street Journal. The problem first came to light in a report by researchers at AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, as Online Media Daily reported in September.

The Journal says "most" of the companies defended the practice, which sends user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users click on ads. Still, "After questions were raised by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook and MySpace moved to make changes ... By Thursday morning Facebook had rewritten some of the offending computer code."

"We already knew that Mark Zuckerberg knows when you're going to break up with your girlfriend," writes Gawker. "Now imagine that the last time you clicked on that Papa John's Pizza ad, some bored Papa John's advertising exec was looking at a picture of you all flabby on the beach and laughing his ass off."

Initially, ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick called the accusations "unbelievable" and "a jaw dropping move of bizarreness" on the part of The Journal, but later backtracked, explaining: "It does appear that there was some grounds for debate around what was being communicated in some URLs."

When all is said and done, "It adds to the growing perception that (Facebook) doesn't care about user's privacy and adds more fuel to privacy advocates' contention that the site needs to make changes to its policies," notes paidContent.

In fact, the only consolation for Facebook is The Journal's finding that other social networks, like MySpace, were also engaged in the offending practice.

Yet, "Facebook was said to have provided the most detailed information," Mercury News points out. "The sites all provided advertisers with user names or ID numbers when an ad was clicked on ... Researchers reported that Facebook also provided data on the users and information about the page being clicked on in the form of so-called 'referrer URLs.'"

The data was apparently provided to large ad companies, including Google's DoubleClick and Yahoo's Right Media -- both of whom told The Journal they weren't aware they were getting the information, and hadn't made use of it.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal et al. »

Next story loading loading..