OK, I admit it — I am a Farmville-aholic. I am totally hooked on the infamous Facebook game, often tending to it several times a day (and night). I love it. But I don’t love some recent findings regarding Facebook and 3rd Party Developers such as Farmville.
According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, dozens of Facebook applications, including wildly popular games from Zynga such as Farmville, Mafia Wars and FrontierVille, has been transmitting private user data to other outside parties, which is in strict violation of Facebook’s privacy settings.
The WSJ’s investigation found that apps like Farmville were transmitting identifying information to “dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies” that could grant advertisers and online tracking firms access to players’ names, as well as the names of their Facebook friends. Or in other words, even if you don’t play FarmVille yourself and even if you have your profile set to the most strict privacy settings, you’re still at risk. Hmmm…
Facebook users’ unique ID numbers were transmitted to outside companies by many of the top apps, including FarmVille, which provided a variety of outsides sources with the names of Facebook users. That may not be a big deal to some, but to others it now means World War III. Facebook has been frequently in the news of late regarding user privacy, and this new leak of data is just one more mark against the world’s most popular networking site.
In response to the report, Facebook issued a stern warning to independent developers on Monday, reminding them that misuse of user data is intolerable. But at the same time, a Facebook engineer said media coverage of the leak has been exaggerated, as he attempted to downplay exactly how much information can or has been shared with third parties. “Our policy is very clear about protecting user data, ensuring that no one can access private user information without explicit user consent,” Facebook engineer Mike Vernal said yesterday. “Further, developers cannot disclose user information to ad networks and data brokers. We take strong measures to enforce this policy, including suspending and disabling applications that violate it.”
Facebook app makers Rapleaf and LOLapps were also named with Zynga in the WSJ’s report. A Zynga spokesperson raced to calm fears, saying the company “has a strict policy of not passing personally identifiable information to any third parties.” The Zynga rep promised that the company will be working with Facebook to improve privacy.
