Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole

May 20, 2010 at 9:58 pm PT

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.

Advertising companies are receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person’s real name, age, hometown and occupation.

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Tagged with: advertising, data, digital, Emily Steel, Facebook, frontpage, ID numbers, individual profiles, Internet, Jessica E. Vascellaro, Myspace, newspaper, social networking, software, The Wall Street Journal, usernames

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