Social networks make it easy for 3rd parties to identify you
Tech News September 28, 2009 21:32   Written by MozAdmin




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By now, it’s no secret that social networks (or really any websites) are sharing some of your usage data with advertising partners in order to provide more targeted ads. Most of the time, this data gets anonymized when it gets passed on so that there’s no personally identifiable information attached to your browsing history. Or does it? I turns out that some social networks—including the majors that we all know and love—have an interesting definition of “anonymous,” essentially making it possible for lots of personally identifiable information to be exposed in connection to browsing habits.

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, and LiveJournal (among others) are all guilty of “leaking” personally identifiable information (PII) to partners, according to a recent study by Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Craig E. Wills and AT&T Labs’ Balachander Krishnamurthy. A “leakage,” by the study’s definition, is the opportunity for a third party to link the information they get from the social networks (either in the form of logs or browser cookies) to someone’s PII—your name, phone number, and dog’s favorite treat aren’t passed on directly, but can easily be pieced together.

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