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Bob Has Some Personal Information That Needs To Be Harvested. Won't You Help?

Oct 18, 2010
By .
Technology

If I'm reading this Wall Street Journal story correctly, Farmville, which is made by the only gaming company more evil than Activision, transmits information about you to third parties even if you don't play it.

They get it from your friends.  Your slack-jawed, mouth-breathing friends.

The Journal found that all of the 10 most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users' IDs to outside companies.

The apps, ranked by research company Inside Network Inc. (based on monthly users), include Zynga Game Network Inc.'s FarmVille, with 59 million users, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille. Three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user's friends to outside companies.

Of course, they have a little help from you.  They'll share your name and whatnot regardless, but the more information you make available to the public, the more they'll share.

The apps reviewed by the Journal were sending Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data firms, several of which build profiles of Internet users by tracking their online activities.

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," said Joel Jewitt, vice president of business development for RapLeaf.

Suuuuuuuure they didn't.

Of course, as evil as it is, Farmville is just a parasite, a sort of tick-bird riding on the rhinoceros of privacy infringement that is Facebook.  Like the tick-bird, Farmville serves a valuable function for Facebook.  It keeps the ticks, all of you people, in control, pestering their friends with messages about needing nails or haystacks and whatnot, rather than thinking about the consequences of their actions.

It's increasingly clear that Facebook's very purpose is the compromise of its users' personal information, and users should consider that in deciding whether to continue the service.

Last 5 posts by Patrick

9 Comments
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9 Comments

  1. CTrees  •  Oct 18, 2010 @6:36 am

    I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I have nothing on Facebook which I would would mind being shared. The personal information is all fake, and my comments are all things I'd be willing to let my boss or my grandmother see without hesitation. Are these groups sleazy? Most assuredly. Unfortunately, all the friends I have on there means I need to be on as well, so I take steps to ensure I don't care who sees my profile (and I still lock down every privacy setting to the maximum).

  2. Noble  •  Oct 18, 2010 @6:57 am

    Thanks for reminding me why I left this piece of crap service long ago. (Facebook, not Farmville)

    I didn't have anything up there I wouldn't mind sharing, but that doesn't mean I consent to data-mining, producing market research for which these companies would otherwise be paying me instead of Zynga.

    I begrudge people getting rich off of violating my privacy, harmless as my data may be.

  3. Grandy  •  Oct 18, 2010 @8:07 am

    Everything in my face book profile comes up unicorns.

  4. Rliyen  •  Oct 18, 2010 @10:43 am

    Reason #547 as to why I don't use this "service."

    Between their arbitrary personal setting changes and this, I'd rather go back to using carrier pigeons.

  5. mojo  •  Oct 18, 2010 @11:17 am

    More properly, Facebook's business plan is to get money from advertisers by selling their user's personal info. It's not a fluke.

  6. Ian  •  Oct 18, 2010 @1:49 pm

    I was on facebook for 17 hours (that is, I had an acount) about four years ago before I cancelled it. I still feel disturbed. Run from it. Now. While you still can……

  7. Mike  •  Oct 18, 2010 @4:38 pm

    I dunno. I like buying stuff. If FB can find me stuff to buy, isn't that a win?

    Serious question for Patrick: If this FB scandal upsetting to you because of privacy, or consumerism? My intuition is that, on a deep level, you don't consumerism – which is a large part of what FB is about.

    The privacy angle never moved me. Facebook is still artificial reality. You can manufacture an identity that has little to do with your "true" self. Indeed, how many of us run web cams into our bathrooms; or film ourselves watching Internet pr0n?

    I never see this as a privacy issue. Even though we "share" on Facebook, we're still only sharing that part of us that we want others to see.

    We keep the deep dark shit to ourselves – or to anonymous message boards.

  8. Patrick  •  Oct 18, 2010 @4:53 pm

    Mike, you're on my Facebook friends list, so you have a very good idea of what I do with Facebook. Pretty much the same thing I do here: I pontificate without revealing anything important about myself.

    I'm not concerned about losing any personal privacy through Facebook for myself. But as I think you know, I despise a corporate media culture that tells us we're defined by the products and services we use or consume. So I poke holes at Facebook, because for the past two years that's what the Combine has been pushing.

    This is important: I believe in the Combine.

  9. Shay  •  Oct 20, 2010 @4:33 pm

    And my sisters wonder why I won't "friend" them.