MySpace has been sharing with its advertisers data that can be used to identify user profile pages, but the company doesn’t consider that to be a problem.
The company said it did not consider the data to be information that could identify a person, partly because MySpace doesn’t require members to use their real names. The social networking site acknowledged transmitting information to advertisers that included a user ID and the last page viewed before a user clicked on an ad.
MySpace issued the statement following a report in the Wall Street Journal on Friday disclosing the sharing. The Journal and MySpace are both owned by News Corp.
The Journal also said some MySpace applications developed by outside parties had been sharing user IDs in violation of MySpace’s terms of use.
Although MySpace also shares user IDs with application developers, it does not allow them to share that data further. The social networking site said it found recently that an app called “Tagme” had again violated this prohibition, but that the developer, BitRhymes Inc, had “promptly complied.”
“Tagme was briefly suspended at an earlier time due to a similar violation of our terms, but complied within a matter of hours before being reinstated,” MySpace said.
BitRhymes said in a statement the sharing “was inadvertently done by an advertiser company we worked with,” and said its policy was not to pass personally identifiable information to third parties.
“When we were informed of the issue, any suspect relationship was immediately dissolved,” it said.
The Journal report was part of its continuing investigative series on online privacy. It came a week after a similar expose found that all of the top 10 applications on larger social networking site rival Facebook, including Zynga Game Network Inc’s FarmVille, with 59 million users, have been transferring user IDs to outside companies. In both cases, the companies said knowledge of a user ID did not allow outside parties to view data the user had listed as private.
However, the Journal found that data gathering firm RapLeaf Inc had linked Facebook data with its own database of Internet users and sold it to other firms. RapLeaf told the newspaper that those transmissions were unintentional.
DIVIDED VIEWS: Although the Fed agreed on holding rates steady, some officials see no rate cuts for this year, while 10 policymakers foresee two or more cuts There are a lot of unknowns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates, but US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled at least one thing seems certain: Higher prices are coming. Fed policymakers voted unanimously to hold interest rates steady at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday, as they await clarity on whether tariffs would leave a one-time or more lasting mark on inflation. Powell said it is still unclear how much of the bill would fall on the shoulders of consumers, but he expects to learn more about tariffs
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
NOT JUSTIFIED: The bank’s governor said there would only be a rate cut if inflation falls below 1.5% and economic conditions deteriorate, which have not been detected The central bank yesterday kept its key interest rates unchanged for a fifth consecutive quarter, aligning with market expectations, while slightly lowering its inflation outlook amid signs of cooling price pressures. The move came after the US Federal Reserve held rates steady overnight, despite pressure from US President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs. Central bank board members unanimously voted to maintain the discount rate at 2 percent, the secured loan rate at 2.375 percent and the overnight lending rate at 4.25 percent. “We consider the policy decision appropriate, although it suggests tightening leaning after factoring in slackening inflation and stable GDP growth,”
RSS