The article says that apps are types of software that allow users to play games or share interests with each other, and the most popular apps on Facebook are guilty of giving out information to various advertising agencies. Many apps are not directly made by Facebook but by outside software developers, and they transmit a user’s “Facebook ID” whenever various applications are used. The Facebook ID is a number given to every Facebook user and it allows people to look people up through that individualized ID and see personal information.
The apps are able to transmit information through a “referer.” The article explains that a referer is a commonality on the Web and it works by passing the information of the previous page viewed when a user clicks on a link. This information is added onto and carried over every time a user clicks another link and it, therefore, provides a history of the searches that a user is involved with. The problem with referers is that they allow agencies to connect the search history with the Facebook ID, which is not anonymous.
After reading the article by the Wall Street Journal, I read some of the comments posted because I was curious to see how people felt about the issue of privacy on Facebook. To my surprise, most of the people who commented were not at all surprised at what Facebook has been sharing. Some even commented that information sharing is everywhere and that it is nearly impossible to escape the fact that our personal information can be shared even offline.
One post commented on another Wall Street Journal article from October 12, 2010, titled “‘Scrapers’ Dig Deep for Data on Web,” which talked about the breaching of a website called PatientsLikeMe.com where people post about their personal stories and emotional disorders, such as depression. In the article, the Wall Street Journal says that a media-research company, Nielsen Co., pretended to be a member of the website but was actually copying every message that was posted on the website in order to obtain private information to share with their major drug making clients to get consumer insight about their products. The article goes on to talk about many different companies that are using data on the internet to advertise or to reveal information about people. The article also identifies another company, PeekYou LLC, that is able to match people’s real names with pseudonyms that people use on blogs or on other social networking sites.
Even though Facebook has a bad reputation for protecting its user’s privacy, it’s just one of the many ways that agencies are able to obtain our personal information from the internet. I think Facebook gets a lot of heat for privacy issues because no other site, social networking or otherwise, has 500 million users at its fingertips. Fortunately or unfortunately, it probably will fall onto the users to make sure they are taking all the necessary precautions to keep their information safe, although apparently even this may not be enough.
Below are the links for the two articles:
“Facebook Privacy Breach” (Oct. 18, 2010)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304772804575558484075236968.html?mod=ITP_pageone_0
“‘Scrapers’ Dig Deep for Data on Web” (Oct. 12, 2010)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870335850457554438128811
Wow, I really liked your blog. This is the kind of information that I really want to know about and I am glad you wrote on it this week and shared the links to the articles. I guess to me, I am not too concerned with Facebook or other sites using my information to advertise to me or for such things as gathering information. To me, the privacy issue only really concerns me, when thinking about how such information could potentially be used against me. My parents are always telling me to be careful about what I put on Facebook because of what future employers may see, etc. I think as far as collecting data or using information to advertise or gear websites toward a certain audience is okay. I just hope that such information wouldn't be used as a way to "get to know" a person, and I am interested in seeing how the information collected, is being used in that way.
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