Facebook Quizzes Could Be Stealing Your Personal Info.

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By David Klugh

Story Published: Mar 2, 2010 at 8:11 PM PDT

YAKIMA -- around the corner at this store, this book club is about to check out a different kind of book... Facebook.
There are quizzes that show up on screen.
But this time they are taking a different kind of quiz, a quiz from the American Civil Liberties Union... with a surprise.
It shows you how Facebook quizzes can suck info you made private right out of your profile.
Even if you set your profile to private when your friends take a quiz, the quiz developers get access to your info, too.

Facebook gave us a written statetment... saying that quiz developers have to promise not to store data for more than twenty four hours...
their policy says developers can't mislead... surprise or defraud people.
and the company says it does spot checks to see if developers are following the policy.

Dave Fidanque with theACLU believes some developers can and will get around the policy and use your information against you.
"That information becomes very valuable. The more that happens, the more tendency there's going to be for our privacy to be invaded without us knowing about it."

The Canadian government investigated and decided Facebook needed to change.
Facebook said it will, but that it will take a long time to retrofit and to give developers time to make sure their quizzes, games and other applications still work.
That leaves you... still exposed.

"I have four hundred friends on facebook
of those four hundred, at any given time, someone is taking a quiz
which means someone can access my info all the time."

Some book club members say they will cut back on quizzesnow that they know being a friend can also make you an enemy.

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