14 DAY TRIAL // Only days have passed since news broke out that top Facebook applications shared users IDs (UIDs) with advertisers, and Zynga has already been sued over the practice.
Zynga is largest Facebook developer and is responsible for six of the top ten most used applications on the platform.
According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, all of the top ten apps and many others, were sending UIDs in referrer URLs included in requests to third parties.
User IDs are unique identifiers, which can be used to access a user's Facebook profile by simply going to http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=[UID].
In addition to UIDs, the newspaper claimed that some apps, including Zygna's FarmVille, which has around 59 million users, also exposed information about people's friends.
ComputerAndVideoGames (CVG) reports that a lawsuit seeking class action status was filed in a San Francisco US District Court on behalf Nancy Graf of St. Paul, Minnesota.
The lawsuit alleges that Zynga broke federal law, as well as Facebook's terms or service by sharing personal data of 218 million users with its advertising partners.
It asks for unspecified monetary relief and an injunction that would ban Zynga from engaging in similar actions in the future.
"This appears to be another example of an online company failing the American public with empty promises to respect individual privacy rights," Michael Aschenbrener of Edelson McGuire LLC, one of the two leading attorneys on the case, told CVG.
According to The Register, Zynga representatives called the lawsuit without merit and stressed that they are preparing a strong defense.
There is some controversy about the effects of UID sharing. Facebook, which is currently a defendant in a similar lawsuit, said that the implications are exaggerated.
On the other hand, even with the strongest privacy settings in place, a user's real name and picture is visible on their profile.
This means that UID sharing means theoretically allows advertisers to associate a person with a hit on one of their ads served through Facebook apps.
This action violates Facebook's privacy policy, which clearly states that targeted advertising based on demographic data is done completely anonymously.