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Facebook Punishes Devs Who Shared User IDs
A couple weeks ago, we discussed news that some Facebook application developers were selling or accidentally sharing user IDs to advertisers and data brokers in violation of Facebook's privacy terms. Now, the company writes that they've updated the policy to dictate how UIDs can be handled within applications, and also punished the offending developers by blocking access to the site's communication channels for a period of six months. Quoting:
"While we determined that no private user data was sold and confirmed that transfer of these UIDs did not give access to any private data, this violation of our policy is something we take seriously. As such, we are taking action against these developers by instituting a 6-month full moratorium on their access to Facebook communication channels, and we will require these developers to submit their data practices to an audit in the future to confirm that they are in compliance with our policies. This impacts fewer than a dozen, mostly small developers, none of which are in the top 10 applications on Facebook Platform. We have also reached an agreement with Rapleaf, the data broker who came forward to work with us on this situation. Rapleaf has agreed to delete all UIDs in its possession, and they have agreed not to conduct any activities on the Facebook Platform (either directly or indirectly) going forward."
Translation: If Rapleaf wants to see the sun rise tomorrow, they will do *exactly* as we say.
Sincerely, Facebook's Legal Team.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Because only Facebook is allowed to profit from the data that they collect. Isn't it obvious? These other developers were cutting into the profit stream and that is against the terms of service.
I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that Facebook has a privacy policy.
Remember to maintain your supply of
"While we determined that no private user data was sold..."
Isn't this one of the companies (along with google) that declared that "privacy on the web no longer exists" or something along those lines?
hence, no "private user data" can be sold because all user data is public, therefore no crime has been committed.
They don't, they have a PR policy.
Interesting. If you want to make an example out of them, then this seems effective. Still, would they have been so harsh against a dev if they were in the top 10? What if Zynga had done this, do you think FB would have banned them for months?
You just operate for a while collect a bunch of ids, seems like something you would need to track accounts, and once you have a worth treasure trove take the slap on the wrist but only after you have transfered all your applications to another 'developer'?
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
Those stories about the great privacy terms violations said that Zynga, via Farmville, was a big offender (the story linked to in the back link to the older Slashdot article says this, in fact).
I wonder if they say "anyone who grabs the UID is punished" b/c that freed up some of their biggest developers, like Zynga, who were doing other bad stuff, but not that bad (for some subjective definition of bad)?
I know, right! It's like a news site leaving their articles completely accessible to the public and then threatening the public that if they read more than the first page that they have to pay or face legal action.
Total morons...
So why isn't Zynga being punished?
How do you punish the biggest game company on the planet? That's like trying to punish Microsoft because your webpage doesn't render well in IE.
Because Zynga is more powerful than Facebook itself. If Facebook tries to fuck with Farmville its entire over-30 female population will riot in the streets.
The only one allowed to harvest and sell your data on facebook is facebook.
I like how you made it into a Farmville analogy.