A report of a massive ‘privacy breach’ at Facebook reveals, instead, the rickety underpinnings of the modern Internet straining at the demands of new applications.
When the Wall Street Journal broke a story on Monday about a “Privacy Breach” at Facebook, all the elements were in place for a tech-driven earthquake: the world’s largest social network, the privacy of what the Journal described as ‘tens of millions’ of users of Facebook applications (or ‘apps’) including mega hits like Zynga’s Farmville.
But as news of the story percolated within technology circles, another picture emerged – this one considerably less sensational and more resigned than the Wall Street Journal’s original report. While the Journal succeeded in spotting some prominent Facebook applications that weren’t adhering to the company’s privacy policy, the real story behind the ‘breach,’ experts say, was
