Another day, another instance of Facebook breaching user privacy

If it feels like you're Bill Murray's character in "Groundhog Day" each time you run across a story about privacy concerns with Facebook, you're probably not alone.

But here we are, yet again: The popular social-media site is being accused of fairly egregious privacy violations. In a report Monday in the Wall Street Journal, Emily Steel and Geoffrey Fowler write that some popular Facebook applications "have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies." Steel and Fowler go on to note that "the issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings"--meaning, in other words, that Facebook's data-releasing practices are in violation of the company's own privacy rules.

Most of the applications the Journal found to be transmitting data -- including the popular FarmVille app -- were not developed by Facebook. Rather, third parties designed them specifically for use on the social networking site.

Reports the Journal:

The information being transmitted is one of Facebook's basic building blocks: the unique "Facebook ID" number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person's name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with "everyone," including age, residence, occupation and photos.

The apps reviewed by the Journal were sending Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data firms, several of which build profiles of Internet users by tracking their online activities.

Facebook's Mike Vernal offered a feisty defense of the company in a blog post on the company's site, acknowledging that the release of user data was a violation of Facebook's own standards, but an accidental one:

Recently, it has come to our attention that several applications built on Facebook Platform were passing the User ID (UID), an identifier that we use within our APIs, in a manner that violated this policy. In most cases, developers did not intend to pass this information, but did so because of the technical details of how browsers work.

Vernal added that "we take user privacy seriously. We are dedicated to protecting private user data while letting users enjoy rich experiences with their friends."

In another recent episode, Facebook stoked user anger with a new feature permitting users to form groups could expose Facebook clients to dastardly spambots, among other things. There is, however, a way to customize your profile to prevent Facebook apps from sharing your private information--though it's still far from clear why the company's users, rather than its vast corps of software engineers, should bear the burden of protecting user privacy.

(Photo of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Getty)