Is Facebook selling your private information?

No facebook is not selling your information, some of it’s applications are violating it’s terms of use and doing that but the company itself it not behind this action.. this time.

link

I know if I click on things that interest me, like “decoupage” then mysteriously I get ads on the right side of my FB screen that advertise decoupage supplies. Since decoupage is probably not the most common thing to advertise, I am fairly sure the information I enter is sold out to other businesses.

Yes.

From what I’ve read, it sounds as though the applications that are stealing your private info are all third party created. Kinda wish Facebook had been a bit more proactive in stopping something like that, but I don’t hold it against them if that does in fact turn out to be the case.

I don’t mess with most apps anyways… they’re frankly pretty stupid.

What @ChazMaz said.

Maybe, but its the nature of the beast.
Some people are willing to put their entire lives on facebook, thinking that they are sharing their information with their “friends” and family, while forgetting that they are also sharing their entire life with a corporation, whose only goal is to make a profit.

I have a Droid 2 and notice that many apps that I try to download, access parts of my phone that I do not want them to acces. I do not download those apps. There is no reason for certain apps to access my phonebook and other parts of my phone. I pretty much guarantee you that we will be hearing about this same issue regarding cell phones in the not so distant future.

We are willingly moving towards George Orwell’s 1984.

I understand that some Facebook apps are accessing your info and passing it along, but that is de facto the same thing isn’t it? I suppose it ought to go without saying that using the internet is no different than talking on a subway. You really have no idea who is listening.

Apps maybe. I don’t think Facebook themselves are doing it – yet. But I expect they will one day. Apps are virtually unregulated, they could be stealing anything, and no-one would know.

Targeted ads are a different thing entirely – they don’t need to sell anything to do those. They just scan your posts and “likes” for keywords. I suspect that one thing they are doing is monitoring what other websites you visit (click-ins and click-outs) and use those to drive targeted advertising.

If so, buyer beware!