Selling You on Facebook

Apps on Facebook may be grabbing and sharing more personal information than many users realize. And even if people understand that they're sharing personal data, they often can't envision the ways it may be used in the future. WSJ's Julia Angwin explains.

Not so long ago, there was a familiar product called software. It was sold in stores, in shrink-wrapped boxes. When you bought it, all that you gave away was your credit card number or a stack of bills.

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Now there are "apps"—stylish, discrete chunks of software that live online or in your smartphone. To "buy" an app, all you have to do is click a button. Sometimes they cost a few dollars, but many apps are free, at least in monetary terms. You often pay in another way. Apps are gateways, and when you buy an app, there is a strong chance that you are supplying its developers with one of the most coveted commodities in today's economy: personal data.

Some of the most widely used apps on Facebook—the games, quizzes and sharing services that define the social-networking site and give it such appeal—are gathering volumes of personal information.

A Wall Street Journal examination of 100 of the most popular Facebook apps found that some seek the email addresses, current location and sexual preference, among other details, not only of app users but also of their Facebook friends. One Yahoo service powered by Facebook requests access to a person's religious and political leanings as a condition for using it. The popular Skype service for making online phone calls seeks the Facebook photos and birthdays of its users and their friends.

Interactive: How Grabby Are Your Facebook Apps?

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Yahoo and Skype say that they seek the information to customize their services for users and that they are committed to protecting privacy. "Data that is shared with Yahoo is managed carefully," a Yahoo spokeswoman said.

More

• Digits: How to Control What Facebook Apps See
• Testing Facebook Apps: Our Methodology
• What They Know: A Wall Street Journal Investigation

The Journal also tested its own app, "WSJ Social," which seeks data about users' basic profile information and email and requests the ability to post an update when a user reads an article. A Journal spokeswoman says that the company asks only for information required to make the app work.

This appetite for personal data reflects a fundamental truth about Facebook and, by extension, the Internet economy as a whole: Facebook provides a free service that users pay for, in effect, by providing details about their lives, friendships, interests and activities. Facebook, in turn, uses that trove of information to attract advertisers, app makers and other business opportunities.

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'Data is what anyone wants access to,' says the maker of an app that collects information about users and their friends.

Up until a few years ago, such vast and easily accessible repositories of personal information were all but nonexistent. Their advent is driving a profound debate over the definition of privacy in an era when most people now carry information-transmitting devices with them all the time.

Capitalizing on personal data is a lucrative enterprise. Facebook is in the midst of planning for an initial public offering of its stock in May that could value the young company at more than $100 billion on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Facebook requires apps to ask permission before accessing a user's personal details. However, a user's friends aren't notified if information about them is used by a friend's app. An examination of the apps' activities also suggests that Facebook occasionally isn't enforcing its own rules on data privacy.

What they Know

• A Wall Street Journal Investigation

Among the possible transgressions of Facebook policies that the Journal identified:

•The app that sought the widest array of personal information of the 100 examined, "MyPad for iPad," has a two-paragraph privacy policy that says it is "adding Privacy settings shortly." Privacy policies that describe how they collect, use and share data are required by Facebook. The app maker couldn't be reached for comment.

•Dozens of apps allow advertisers that haven't been approved by Facebook within their apps, which enables advertisers including Google to track users of the apps, according to data collected by PrivacyChoice, which offers privacy services. Google said app-makers control which technology they use to deliver online ads.

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