Facebook Pipes Burst Again, Spew Private E-mail Addresses

By Nick Mokey March 31, 2010

Just when you thought your private data was safe on Facebook after last February’s private message spill, the company’s loose-lipped servers have done it again. On Tuesday, the site temporarily stopped shielding private e-mail addresses, making contact information that users specifically asked to sequester viewable to the public.

Gawker first reported the story Wednesday morning with an irate tip from a user. “Everybody’s email has been turned on to the public for at least the past 30 min,” the tipster wrote. “I tried going into my account to remove my email b/c I have an issue with a crazed stalker. But I wasn’t able to.”

Whoops.

Facebook later confirmed the problem. “Last night during Facebook’s regular code push, a bug caused hidden email addresses to be visible briefly,” a Facebook spokesman told V3.

Facebook earned the ire of privacy advocates earlier this year when founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed that privacy is no longer a “social norm,” and again more recently when it faced scrutiny from European watchdogs for allowing users to upload information about other people without their consent.

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