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41% of Facebook Users Willing To Divulge Personal Info

Posted by samzenpus on from the do-you-need-my-social-security-number? dept.

plastick writes "In an experiment, 41% of Facebook users were willing to divulge highly personal information to a complete stranger. This according to IT security firm Sophos, which invited 200 randomly selected Facebookers to befriend a bogus Facebook user named 'Freddi Staur' (an anagram of 'ID Fraudster'). Of those queried, 87 responded to the invitation, among them 82 people whose profiles included personal information such as their email address, date of birth, address or phone number."

6 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Again? by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yet ANOTHER story about how many Facebook users are not particularly interested in hiding personal information. I mean. come on! This is some sort of News Flash? Is anyone unaware that Facebook is primarily a platform for sharing personal information?

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Again? by One+Louder · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apparently, it *was* a News Flash back in 2007 when this article was written.

  2. Misleading Title by Haedrian · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Willing to Divulge to" makes it sound like some complete stranger went on facebook and asked "Hey, give me your email address, blood type and shoe size" and got an answer.

    What it really is, is that people add friends pretty randomly and openly, and many don't secure their personal information very well. In the ideal case you would have various 'grades' of friends which determine permissions but

    a) Nobody would bother using it
    b) Facebook doesn't particularly care about privacy.

    Anyhoo, we knew all of this earlier - so non-story.

  3. This information isn't private by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    personal information such as their email address, date of birth, address or phone number

    I also have that information on my Facebook profile. It is available for ANYONE to see, including nonfriends.

    I don't have a problem here - the problem lies with any bank who would consider that information to be "secret", and would allow someone to get a loan in my name with only that information.

  4. This article is four years old. by Krystalo · · Score: 5, Informative

    This article was published in August 2007.

  5. Re:Was it real by Zemran · · Score: 4, Funny

    I always use 1-1-1980, the date that BIOS used to reset to when the battery went flat on a motherboard.

    --
    I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.