How Harmful Is Facebook's Privacy Breach?

[Feannag]

Facebook is leaking users' personal information to advertising firms and Internet tracking companies, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. The information being shared is a user's unique "Facebook ID" number, which can be used to find a person's name (and friends' names) regardless of how they set their privacy settings. According to the article, popular third party apps including FarmVille and Texas HoldEm Poker are responsible for the breach, which may affect tens of millions of people. How harmful is this for Facebook users? Here's what tech observers are saying:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opini...cy-Breach-5424

[Raiala]

Soo... A persons name. I'm staying out of this, and posting to inform you about that.

[Zalis]

Don't play Farmville. Problem (mostly) solved.

[Смерть]

Don't play Farmville. Problem (mostly) solved.

The Mafia Boss is the one who has ALL of the IDs, mhwahaha...

[Zalis]

I don't play any games on Facebook, but you're probably right.

There was a little hack'n'slash that I tried back in late '08, but I decided to avoid 'em all. (that and excessive Likes) I'm already on there to keep in touch and/or up-to-date w/ some, but we've got to realize that all of the info is fair game. Leaks are bad news, but our info is generally as public as we make it.

[Alaris]

Problem not solved... because Farmville already has your IDs if you ever played it. Stopping now is too late.

[Zalis]

Am I the only one who's never played it?

[Feannag]

I've never played it... but then again, I don't use Facebook either.

[Alaris]

I don't even facebook, but my kid has played Farmville for a while.

[Tender Wolf]

Zalis I've never played it either. And after this I never will.

This would be something to put in the Facebook movie - third party apps on the site cause privacy breaches. Win!