We're not sure why people place so much value on their own privacy -- after all, we spend our days pouring out our hearts on this here public website -- but apparently, it's enough to warrant a class action lawsuit over Zynga's alleged leaks of Facebook users' private info. According to a press release from law firm Edelson McGuire, the suit, filed in a San Francisco federal court by St. Paul, Minn. resident Nancy Graf, seeks "monetary relief for those whose data was wrongly shared, and injunctive relief to prevent continued privacy abuses."
No specific amount was mentioned regarding the extent of the aforementioned "monetary relief," but seeing as how the announcement claims the leaks affected 218 million Facebook users, we're guessing the damages sought will be ... significant.
Like you didn't see this one coming. According to some sleuthing by the Wall Street Journal, many popular Facebook apps - including titles from omnipresent game dev Zynga - are sharing your user ID with unauthorized third parties. The Journal found that "all 10 of the top Facebook apps transmitted user's IDs" - six of those apps, including Farmville at numero uno, are created by Zynga.
In addition, the Journal reports that "three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user's friends to outside companies." Of course, your user ID is publicly available and is, by itself, just a number; however, this data can be (and, as the Journal reports is being) shared with other parties, specifically "at least 25 advertising and data firms." The Journal says that many devs may not have realized they were exposing that information - the referring page includes the user's ID in the URL. Whoops!
Facebook, for its part, says that mere knowledge of an ID "does not permit access to anyone's private information on Facebook" though some firms will pair IDs to whatever personal information is stored in a user's public Facebook profile. The company also says it will work to "contain the problem." A Zynga spokesperson said, "Zynga has a strict policy of not passing personally identifiable information to any third parties" and pledged to work with Facebook to "refine how web technologies work to keep people in control of their information." The way we see it, you've got two choices: 1) Stop using Facebook apps or 2) Resign yourself to a dystopian future wherein the entire world knows you play Farmville. How humiliating!
#sports
Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Rays succumbed to the Texas Rangers in the playoffs. We're not blaming iPad Farmville clone "We Farm," but David Price, who made a costly fielding misjudgment in that game, is a big fan of the game. More »
#pullquote
Dave Roberts, boss of PopCap - the guys behind Plants vs Zombies and Peggle - has some none-too-subtle words to say about competitors and Farmville developers Zynga. [image] More »
#farmville
FarmVille, the casual game sensation, has players manage a virtual farm. By "virtual", I mean "not real". A real farmer gives Beef Magazine this insight: More »
#unhappiness
Facebook is not working well right now. It's down for a lot of folks. That means FarmVille crops may be dying. And that means some people are upset. Others are laughing. More »
#socialgames
A marketing research firm found that 17 percent of social gamers - Farmville, Mafia Wars and the like - consider themselves "addicted," though it's not clear if they say that regretfully or as a lighthearted self-description. More »
#mafiawars
Zynga, the company behind Facebook titles like Farmville and Mafia Wars, is in trouble with the San Francisco City Attorney's Office over reports of vandalism linked to the developer's advertisements. More »
#pc
Young woman has job. Boss calls young woman "hot piece of ass." Young woman quits, uses dry erase board to fire back. Boss, it seems, loved playing FarmVille during work hours too much. More »
#thewaywelivenow
The company behind Farmville is sealing a deal with Google and has been embraced by Apple and Facebook. That such companies would associate themselves with the exploitation of children and financially depleted addicts is alarming, even in hyper-aggressive Silicon Valley. More »
#cowclicker
Ian Bogost - video game academic, designer and one-time Kotaku guest editor - has just released the Shaun of the Dead of Facebook games. More »
#zynga
Zynga's massive community of fake farmers will plant its first branded crops in-game next week, teaching FarmVille players about organic farming and green living through a partnership with General Mills subsidiary Cascadian Farm. More »
#zynga
Zynga's massive community of fake farmers will plant its first branded crops in-game next week, teaching FarmVille players about organic farming and green living through a partnership with General Mills subsidiary Cascadian Farm. More »
#rumor
Tech Crunch sources report that not only has Google quietly invested somewhere between $100 and $200 million dollars in FarmVille and Mafia Wars creator Zynga, the developer's games will form the base for Google Games, launching later this year. More »
#farmville
Uber popular real-time farming sim FarmVille has players grow their own fruits and vegetables. That's a game. In real life, people buy crap from convenience stores. More »
#wordofwarcraft
Social sites and massively multiplayer online games aren't just a great place to catch up with friends and be entertained, they're also a great place to dig up dirt on a soon-to-be ex, according to an article in USA Today. More »
#facebook
Firefox users may have noticed they had to upgrade their browser over the weekend. Why did every Firefox user on the planet need this essential upgrade? Because Farmville was broken. More »
#iphone4
The iPhone 4 has been released. Perhaps you bought one. Perhaps not. But if you did, you should play games on it. No, really. You should. More »
Zynga announced today that it has released Farmville for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The free app allows Farmville players to tend their crops and view their masterful creations on the go. In addition, the iPhone version will even send status updates to users via push notifications.
Not announced today, Farmville Ultimate, which connects a money siphon directly to your grandmother's purse.
#iphone
As promised, FarmVille is now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, dooming millions to endless mobile toil on virtual farms, unless the app's slow speed and crashing save the day. More »
#facebook
Is FarmVille fun? Depends on your definition of fun, probably. But the veteran creator of some big-name games is the man behind FrontierVille — the next game from FarmVille studio Zynga. And he's done stuff Farmville skeptics might like. More »
#zynga
During this morning's keynote speech at Apple's WWDC 2010 event, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus took the stage to introduce FarmVille for the iPhone. More »
Due to Facebook's recent decision to limit the notifications proliferated by third-party applications -- Join my Mafia! Feed my Goldfish! Become a Vampire! Fight my Pirates,etc. -- the creators of games which appear on the social networking site are beginning to see their player bases decrease dramatically. Gamasutra reports that 12 of the top 25 Facebook games saw more than one million players leave in May, while the worldwide FarmVille community lost more than 7.7 million of its agricultural inhabitants.
It's unclear how these losses affect the pocketbooks of social game developers such as Zynga -- its entirely possible that these quitters weren't purchasing in-game content in the first place. However, it's definitely creating some negative consequences for our untended, expansive soybean fields.
We rarely, if ever, write rebuttals to stories posted on the esteemed, list-friendly publication known as Time, but we've got more than a few bones to pick with its recently posted "50 Worst Inventions" list. Around every turn, the list seems to get it wrong. For instance: FarmVille? There are 70 million people who'd disagree with that one. And Virtual Boy? The world's first fully-3D game console/amateur LASIK surgery machine? That's about as progressive and brilliant as inventions get.
Check out the full list of so-called failed products on Time's site, and see if you share our feelings. Like, auto-tuning, guys? Really? One of the worst inventions ever? And Olestra? The ultimate nutritional cooking supplement? Did they read this list before they published it?
#science
I poke fun at the Virtual Boy as much as the next guy, but does it belong on the same list as New Coke, Clippy the helpful paper clip, the Segway, and Agent Orange? More »
#farmville
You may already know about 7-Eleven buddying up with Zynga, the maker of Farmville and Mafia Wars, for farm flavored ice cream, but are you aware that purchasing one of the convenience store's hot dogs gets you a bulletproof vest? More »
