Privacy News Facebook recently closed a loophole that allowed third parties to discover the names of people in private, 'closed' Facebook groups

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Level 6
Thread author
Verified
Jun 24, 2018
277
  • The leader of a private Facebook group for women with the BRCA gene became alarmed after discovering a Chrome plug-in for marketers that let them discover group members' names and other info.
  • She consulted a security researcher who confirmed the privacy loophole in Facebook private groups.
  • Facebook has closed the loophole, and the Chrome plug-in has been discontinued.
Facebook recently closed a privacy loophole that allowed third parties to discover the names of people in private, "closed" Facebook groups. A Chrome extension that was made specifically for marketers to harvest this information en masse was also shut down prior to Facebook's move, after the social media network issued a cease-and-desist letter to the application's makers earlier this year, according to a spokesperson.

Facebook's decision came after members of a private group for women with a gene mutation associated with a higher risk breast cancer complained, concerned that their names might be exposed and open them to discrimination from insurers or other privacy violations. A spokesperson for Facebook said shutting down the ability to view members of closed groups was a recent decision based on "several factors," but was not related to this group's outreach.

The privacy issue comes at a time when Facebook is trying to re-position itself as a gathering place for friends, family and those with common problems and interests, in an effort to shake off negative connections to malicious online trolls, political rancor and alleged widespread violations of privacy. Facebook has also prioritized “groups” as a business strategy, with Mark Zuckerberg telling CNN last year: “If what you’re trying to do is run a group that has thousands of people, you need tools to help manage that.”


The company is also dealing with fierce regulatory scrutiny, particularly in the European Union, where new General Data Protection Regulation has expanded the definition of "personal data" far beyond social security numbers, to include the kind of data, like locations, names and genetic markers, that had been available publicly on members of Facebook's closed groups.
 

Weebarra

Level 17
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 5, 2017
836
I used it yesterday to enter a competition :rolleyes: but that's all i use it for. Nothing personally identifiable on my FB at all.
They have been advertising heavily here in the UK these last few days, every commercial break after about 7pm was for FB saying "let's get it back to what it was intended for" or words similar and focusing on how you the user are in control.

But the way i am reading this is that it is not only FB who are to blame but Google too. Can't trust nobody no more (or did we ever ?) Kill them all :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: Oops. i might be arrested for making threats now ;)
 

Peter Phillie

Level 1
Verified
Jul 12, 2018
40
I use Facebook every day because it's the fastest and cheapest means to communicate with my friends & relatives. We can post almost anything and show to people from the other side of the world. But the sad part is, we don't own FB. So everything we post can be removed at any time if it does not comply with the FB community standards. And the worse is, we are not sure who else has access to the information we provide here.
 

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