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Facebook CEO feels heat over privacy breach

Two prominent members of the US House of Representatives have demanded answers about Facebook's latest privacy breach from the company's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
Written by Declan McCullagh, Contributor

Two prominent members of the US House of Representatives have demanded answers about Facebook's latest privacy breach from the company's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that third-party applications on the social-networking site were allowed to gather personally identifiable information from users. It is not clear if Facebook knew that some of these companies — including Zynga, maker of the extremely popular game FarmVille — were allegedly selling data to advertisers and tracking companies in violation of the site's terms of use.

In a letter to Zuckerberg, US representatives Ed Markey and Joe Barton posed 18 questions, including a query about the guidelines that Facebook has in place for third-party applications to protect its users from advertent or inadvertent privacy breaches. They also asked the chief exec to identify the officials within Facebook who are responsible for ensuring that third-party applications satisfy Facebook's terms and conditions. The politicians requested a response by 27 October.

For more on thisstory, read Politicos press Facebook CEO over privacy flap on CNET News.

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