Open Facebook

Open Facebook

Facebook and privacy go together like Hilary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Yesterday it was revealed that yet another security breach at Facebook exposed user data to public view.

A bug in the feature that allows users to see how their profile appears to others exposed chat data and pending friend requests.

Facebook responded quickly to patch the hole, but it’s once again clear that Facebook is the least secure of the social networking sites. In late 2009 they were attacked for security practices at one point that involved all staff accessing the main user database used a single password.

Now Marc Rotenberg, a spokesperson for the Electronic Privacy Information Center is urging the FTC to step in to monitor Facebook’s processes to ensure users privacy becomes a primary concern.

“Our view is that the FTC (U.S. Federal Trade Commission) needs to act on consumer concerns about Facebook’s sloppy privacy and security practices.”

The bug was resolved on Wednesday afternoon.

As reported in Reuters

3 Comments »

Vikash

May 6th, 2010 at 5:59 am

Thats Scary.. All of use FB like hell.. But if this is the case, then we need to worry. Well actually FB guys should worry and take care of it

Aaron Dalrymple

May 6th, 2010 at 6:31 am

Facebook needs a kick in the pants to get its act together. The saddest part is that even though they are a privacy and security nightmare, people are so anxious to put their lives online and build up their “friends” list that I don’t think most of them notice or even care… Remember, users are Facebook’s PRODUCT — not their customers. Advertisers are the customer.

Thomas DJ

May 6th, 2010 at 5:41 pm

At least you have the ability to CHOOSE not to participate on facebook, and they do offer some semblance of privacy controls, even though they’re confusing and hard to use. What’s worse now is that there are some sites like http://www.dirtyphonebook.com that are posting peoples personal information without permission. Talk about a privacy nightmare that needs to be stopped. I think the best way to manage your privacy on facebook is to divide people into lists and only let a small number of users see your most personal information. Also, make sure none of your profile pictures are anything that you don’t want others to see. You’re still at risk if you do this, but you can manage it a little bit better.