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Legal Commentary

: LawPundit

Personal Rights and Online Law: Facebook Breaches Online Privacy via Applications (Apps) that Transmit Identifying Information

By Andis Kaulins

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Facebook has a problem with privacy law and there is no indication that they have learned from past gaffes.

At the Wall Street Journal Online, Emily Steel and Geoffrey A. Fowler write that Facebook in Online Privacy Breach as Applications Transmitting Identifying Information.

The journalistic investigation reveals not only that "top-ranked applications transmit personal IDs", but that ALL of the top 10 Facebook apps transmit user IDs.

There are over 500,000 apps so that the potential for privacy breaches is mind-boggling. As the WSJ writes:

"Defenders of online tracking argue that this kind of surveillance is benign because it is conducted anonymously. In this case, however, the Journal found that one data-gathering firm, RapLeaf Inc., had linked Facebook user ID information obtained from apps to its own database of Internet users, which it sells. RapLeaf also transmitted the Facebook IDs it obtained to a dozen other firms, the Journal found.

RapLeaf said that transmission was unintentional. "We didn't do it on purpose" ....

That is little solace to those whose privacy has been breached.

Read the whole thing.

Full post as published by LawPundit on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).