Thaindian News

Oct 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A privacy breach which has effected literally millions of Facebook users took place this Sunday, and was admitted by Facebook after an investigation by The Wall Street Journal revealed the problem. The breach even effects those users who set their profile to the strictest possible settings in Facebook. It is unknown how long the breach has been in place, and officials are currently still trying to find a solution.

Many of the Facebook apps, including the top ten most popular games, such as Farmville, Frontierville, and Texas HoldEm are giving out user IDs to at least 25 different advertising companies and Internet-tracking corporations, which use the information to track the activities of these users online. Basically, the applications themselves are passing out user’s information, names, and in some cases, their friend’s names as well to these companies. This is completely against the Facebook privacy policies and rules, and once again questions the ability of the site to keep the information of their users safe.

Both Facebook and the companies which create the games, such as Zynga, admits that this is not the first time such a breach has happened, but they insist that they did not do it on purpose and are actively working to try and find ways to keep this from continuing to occur.

Two ways to ensure more privacy on Facebook were given by the Washington Post:

Give up the farming, get back to work.

Go to Privacy Settings — > Applications, Games and Websites — > Unwanted or spammy applications — > Click the “x” next to each application you do not use.

Limit what your friends share about you.

Go to Privacy Settings — > Applications, Games and Websites — > Info accessible through your friends — > Edit Settings — > Uncheck all boxes and save changes.