Facebook users’ personal information has been leaked to third parties, in particular advertisers, over the past few years, according to security software specialist Symantec. The leakages may have been accidental, it said.Facebook, the world’s largest social networking website, was notified of this issue and had confirmed the leakage, Symantec added.
“We estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage,” Symantec said in a blog post.
Facebook in reply claimed Symantec’s report has “a few inaccuracies”. “We have conducted a thorough investigation which revealed no evidence of this issue resulting in a user’s private information being shared with unauthorised third parties,” said spokeswoman Malorie Lucich.
