Privacy gaps expose Facebook users to advertisers, net tracking

Facebook pledged to enforce its privacy settings on Monday after a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed some of the website’s applications were sharing users’ information with advertising and Internet tracking companies.

The Journal reported 10 of Facebook’s most popular apps, including FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker and Mafia Wars, were “transmitting users’ IDs to outside companies.”

Engineer Mike Vernal wrote in Facebook’s Developer Blog that the company acknowledges these applications were passing user’s IDs “in a manner that violated” Facebook’s privacy policy.

The policy specifies that user information cannot be disclosed to advertising networks and data brokers, according to the blog post.

“In most cases, developers did not intend to pass this information, but did so because of the technical details of how browsers work,” he wrote. “Press reports have exaggerated the implications of sharing a UID.”

He said although knowledge of a user ID does not enable access to that user’s information without his or her consent, Facebook would work to prevent the passing of user IDs in compliance with its privacy policy.

However, most BU students said they aren’t disturbed by the website’s alleged lack of privacy compliance because they are conscious of the fact that people can easily view posts on the Internet.

“People take privacy on Facebook for granted, but you have to be careful,” said College of Engineering sophomore Tom Howe. “It’s still a great site.”

“As long as you’re smart about it, there shouldn’t be privacy issues,” said ENG sophomore Hannah Glasrud.

Some students even take extra precautions because they said online privacy is not guaranteed.

“I don’t have anything up that you can’t find by Googling my name,” said ENG sophomore Jeanessa Slaughter.

“You have to be careful about what you put on the Internet, that’s my policy,” added College of Communication sophomore Jon Sedler.