Facebook hit by new privacy breach storm

SOCIAL networking site in hot water after application developers given users' numbers and addresses.

The world's dominant social network is back at the centre of a privacy storm by allowing application developers to access users' home addresses and mobile phone numbers as a matter of course.

The weekend move led online security experts to warn Facebook's half a billion users to remove phone numbers and addresses from the network.

When people use one of Facebook's third-party applications, such as a popular games Farmville and Mafia Wars, the pop-up window asks for access to "contact information" including address and mobile phone number.

Users can simply select the "Don't allow" button, denying app developers the ability to access personal data.

However, people often do not read what they are agreeing to.

Computer Weekly's security blogger of the year Graham Cluley wrote in a post yesterday: "Remove your home address and mobile phone number from your Facebook profile now."

The security expert also wrote that Facebook was "already plagued by rogue applications" and that "shady app developers will find it easier than ever before to gather even more personal information from users".

"Bad guys could set up a rogue app that collects phone numbers and then uses that information for the purposes of SMS spamming or sells on the data to cold-calling companies," he wrote

Electronic Frontiers Australia chairman Colin Jacobs was scathing of the way Facebook valued personal data.

"Facebook have a history of gambling with their users' privacy, and they have once again upped the ante," he said.

"It only takes a second to imagine a scenario where access to somebody's home address or mobile number could lead to a serious abuse.

"Such sensitive information should be the most stringently safeguarded but I question whether this is the case.

"This just opens up another channel through which some of your most private information could leak."

Facebook user Rachelle Mack said this latest move to erode privacy on the social network was worrying.

"I already set everything to private - even tagged photos of myself. I don't like the idea my mobile number might be passed on to people I don't know," Ms Mack said yesterday.

Facebook's developer guidelines state that application makers can only ask for information they actually need in an effort to ensure unscrupulous people don't simply mine as much personal data as they can to sell to advertisers or, worse, use in identify fraud.

However, in October last year the Wall Street Journal exposed a number of Facebook app developers who were blatantly breaking the guidelines and feeding data to advertisers.

ninemsn 19 Jan 2010

In the New Age companies can breach privacy acts of individuals, share their information with other firms for 'marketing' research, and there are NO CONSEQUENCES to the company or the CEO.

There is NO jail time, and there are NO courts for customers breach of privacy.

On the other hand if a company has slack security, and individuals point this out, then some time after, access the information that can be easily obtained, they are called hackers, and incarcerated under United States law.

This is the age of the New World Order where the individual has NO RIGHTS in cyberspace.