Lunchtime Reading: Who's Getting in Your Facebook?

MAYBE YOU HAVE THREE KIDS. Maybe you grew up in Gaithersburg. Maybe you enjoy cutting miniature pumpkins into decorative knickknacks in your spare time.

If you put that information on Facebook, the people who created the widgets you download might know all about it.

In an eye-opening report, The Post's Kim Hart took a look at what your Facebook applications know and when they get to know it. The results, including findings by University of Virginia researcher Adrienne Felt, were troubling:

She examined 150 of the most popular Facebook applications to find out how much data could be gathered. Her research, which was presented at a privacy conference last month, found that about 90 percent of the applications have unnecessary access to private data.

"Once the information is on a third-party server, Facebook can't do anything about it," she said. Developers can use it to provide targeted ads based on a member's gender, age or relationship status.

Think keeping your profile private will guard your information? Step back, sneaky:

Even private profiles, in which personal details are available only to specific friends, reveal personal information, said Chris Soghoian, a cyber-security researcher at Indiana University. And they're allowing access to their friends' information -- even if their friends are not using the application. That's because MySpace and Facebook, the largest online social networks, let outside developers see a member's information when they add a program.

"You want to be social with your friends, but now you're giving 20 guys you've never met vast amounts of information from your profile," he said. "That should be troubling to people."

» "A Flashy Facebook Page, at a Cost to Privacy" [WaPo]