Facebook developers exiled for selling user IDs to brokers

Facebook is taking action against developers who flouted company rules by selling unique user IDs to a data broker. The unnamed developers, which numbered fewer than 12, won't have access to Facebook communication channels for six months, Facebook platform engineer Mike Vernal said on Friday. They also will be required to …

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple Solution

The facebook IDs of users should be generated uniquely for each connect application.

This will mean they are useful to only single developer. Even if they are sold or leaked, they can't be used by another developer to identify users.

[JaitcH]

Same old, same old

Facebook and it's 'friends' can't be trusted. Period.

So what part don't users understand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Temporary Exile?

Why only temporary exile? Ban them for good if what they've done is so wrong. Or is it that they committed the sin of reminding people what Facebook is really all about?

[Pascal Monett]

Ban them ?

Nah, their only sin is that they got caught. Zuckerberg isn't going to ban them for that. He's going to give them time to refine the procedure so, the next time they try, they will hopefully go under the radar.

Then he will set up a mechanism to cash in on the ID selling.

[Alastair 7]

You think that would make a difference?

Ban Company. Owners of company set up a new company, start selling personal data. Ban Company. Repeat forever.

Clearly there's money to be made with this sort of activity, so I'm sure it's worth the money to establish a new company each time.

[Owen Sweeney]

Wow!

SIX months - now, THAT'S a deterrent!

What a fucking joke!

[Mike Green]

Don't sell our product's-- err customers' details...

...that's our job!

[nichomach]

Good report...

....shitty behaviour from Facebook and their pet developer. Vernal's "“We look forward to broader cooperation from everyone in the web community to confront issues that impact all of us.”" is a fairly pathetic piece of deflection - "It's not OUR problem that our privacy policies are farcical and our tame developers have the ethical awareness of a rabid stoat, because everyone else is the same. Really, they are."

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personally, i want to know if google benefitted from it's partnership/investment with zynga in the data leak mentioned.

[zaralockwood]

hmmm...

so I take it facebook are going to ban zynga for 6 months then, and remove all their apps ? or are they only selecting some developers to ban -i.e the ones that buy less adverts ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zynga won't be banned

think about it... over 40% of user activity on Facebook is apparently playing games so can you imagine FB ever doing more than expressing outrage at their #1 revenue stream?

[screaminfakah]

What is the big deal anyway?

So facebook and devs did what most of the internet does and is still doing. What do you think Goolge, Yahoo, MSN, etc. do with their cookies?

[BillG]

What a Joke

What a joke - violate a privacy agreement and you get a weak slap on the wrist. Lawsuit? No. A fine? No. Criminal charges? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point?

What's the point of "social networking" if you want privacy? Zuckerberg said it all when he declared that his policy was to assume that all users wanted to interconnect. Why else would you be social networking? Not for privacy, that's for sure.