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MySpace Putting a Stop to Apps Sharing User Data

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Privacy violation and safeguarding the user’s data is the hot topic all over the web. Various Tech Blogs are presenting their views and scrutinizing the tech giants, to know the fact if user’s data is being kept private or not. First, it was the search giant Google that came under fire from Government Agencies and Internet Regulators worldwide because of illegal scooping up of data from the Internet WiFi Spots worldover. Google quickly reacted and announced that they are going to run privacy related trainings for their employees whose number is in excess of 20,000.

Now it’s the social networking giant MySpace which has also reacted to this privacy protection fiasco and on Saturday social networking site MySpace first acknowledged the very fact that they have indeed shared the users profile information with the internet based advertisers and further commented that they are going to take a firm action against all the application developers out there who might have violated the MySpace terms of use by sharing the users information and data with the advertisers.

A report was also released by the Wall Street Journal on Friday stating that News Corp, which bought property MySpace, has been sending and sharing the user’s data to the advertising companies that would in return identify the users. The report said that the data could include Pictures, Gender, Name and many other specific details about users.

A spokesperson for the company under the condition of anonymity told the media that although company shares the user information with the advertisers but they categorically do not identify a particular user. Well, those who are conversant with MySpace know that the users registered on the social Networking site do not require giving their real name in the process of registration but their Display user ID can somehow link the information that is displayed on their profile. This sharing of profile information can in some instances also give away the user’s real name, e-mail address and any other kind of critical information.

According to a report, MySpace users have been at the risk of exposing the information that they have posted to their profile to multitude of outside Advertisers. Whenever any of the users, visiting the site, clicks on any of the ads displayed their user ID’s are straight away released to the third party applications and the vendors who in turn scoop up the personal information displayed on the page and send it to other companies.

The MySpace spokesman told to CNN news Channel that the company shares non-personally identifiable info with the third party advertising agencies and this whole process is a part of ad serving scheme. The spokesperson further commented that MySpace has learnt that numerous third Party application developers might have violated MySpace’s terms and we are taking substantial action against all of these application developers. The spokesperson also told that MySpace has a very clear cut policy barring third party application developers from sharing any kind of user data whether it is a User ID or anything else as a matter of fact.

According to MySpace, one of the recent incidents in which a company was violating the MySpace’s user Privacy Policy was in the case of a popular MySpace application called as “Tag Me”. When MySpace got the notification that this particular App is violating the policy, the company briefly suspended this particular application.

MySpace has maintained the stance that it is always collecting the chunk of user’s information and that too for metric and analysis purposes. Moreover, MySpace only reveals the information that a particular user has made public on their personal profile, apart from that MySpace strictly follows the User’s Privacy Safeguarding Principles and keeps a constant check on the companies for not violating the policies.

Social networking giant Facebook is also experiencing the same kind of issues and this particular leak confessed by MySpace is in a series of other companies accepting their violations as well. Social networking giant Facebook on Monday issued a very strict warning to all the independent application developers. This warning was issued after a report was released that some of the applications on the Facebook site have been sharing the user’s information and the data with the third party developers.

According to the industry analysts, the personal information leaks of Facebook were more serious and alarming as compared to the other social networking realms present out there on the Web World. Well, the reason that why the Facebook leaks were more alarming was because of the fact that Facebook has a huge user’s base and the personal information including the original names were also released to the third party application developers. Facebook has said in a press statement on Monday that they are going to block the transmission of any of the user’s id.

Social networking site MySpace sort of re-invented itself as an online realm and a complete community for the music lovers and the makers may it be a vocalist or a composer. News Corp that bought this social networking site way back in 2005 for a price tag of 580 million dollars is planning to re-launch its site for social music lover’s community by the end of this year. This time they have planned to target a much younger audience base and they are also planning to put a premium sort of on the “Self Expression” thing. MySpace among this era of social networking platforms still claims that they have a huge user’s base.

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