Facebook accepts its apps share IDs

BANGALORE, INDIA: Facebook on Monday acknowledged that some of its popular applications like game FarmVille, had improperly shared identifying information about users, and in some cases their friends, with advertisers and Web tracking companies.

The acknowledgment has come in response to an article in The Wall Street Journal that claimed that several popular applications were passing a piece of data known as a user ID to outside companies, in violation of Facebook's privacy policy.

A Facebook blog said it was talking to application developers about how they handled personal information, and was looking at ways to prevent this from happening again.

Also read: Facebook admits to leaks

Having a user ID allows someone to look up that user's name and any data posted on that person's public profile, like a college or favorite movies, but not information that the user had set to be visible only to friends.

It may be recalled here that security experts have also questioned the security of the Facebook users after it launched the one-time password system recently.

Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos warns that Facebook's one-time password feature could in fact result in further security concerns for users. "If you believe a computer might not be secure in the first place, why would you use it to access personal accounts such as Facebook? A temporary password may stop key logging spyware, giving cybercriminals a permanent backdoor into your account, but it doesn't stop malware from spying on your activities online, and seeing what's happening on your screen," said Cluley.

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