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Facebook, Others Giving User Private Data To Advertisers

Posted by kdawson on from the naked-we-stand dept.

superapecommando sends along a Wall Street Journal report that indicates that Facebook's privacy troubles may be just beginning. "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. The practice, which most of the companies defended, sends user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users click on ads. 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. ... Several large advertising companies ... including Google Inc.'s DoubleClick and Yahoo Inc.'s Right Media, said they were unaware of the data being sent to them from the social networking sites, and said they haven't made use of it. ... The sites may have been breaching their own privacy policies as well as industry standards. ... Those policies have been put forward by advertising and Internet companies in arguments against the need for government regulation."

2 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah right by jayhawk88 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Several large advertising companies... including Google Inc.'s DoubleClick and Yahoo Inc.'s Right Media, said they were unaware of the data being sent to them from the social-networking sites, and said they haven't made use of it.

    So major online advertising companies, who make their living analyzing data from server logs, who at a moments notice can tell you the click-through rate of any ad they currently have in rotation, who study the eye movements of users while using computers to design more effective ads, who have taken a medium where content is by and large free and found a way to make money off it, didn't notice they were being sent usernames and ID #'s that were tied to the click-throughs on some of their ads.

  2. Re:Oh Shit by McGruber · · Score: 0, Troll

    Guess the Journal forgot Rupert also owns MySpace.

    Oh noes, the WSJ is Zucked!