Have you ever wondered how advertising agencies get hold of your details? Well, in some cases you are unknowingly handing information to them over Facebook. According to a recent study by The Wall Street Journal, many of the Facebook applications have been sending your information and even your friends’ information to these companies.

This affects most people who use Facebook, and even if you have the strictest privacy settings activated for your account, you are giving them access to your information by using certain applications.

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The top 10 apps on Facebook have all been found to be sending personal information of its users to outside companies. These include FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille.

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Outside companies can use information such as your name, age, friends’ names or photos to track your online activity.

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A spokesperson for Facebook has said that they are taking steps to limit exposure of your personal information.  Facebook has blocked some applications that they know are passing on personal information of its users to advertising companies.

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There are also a number of ways that you can proactively try to limit the amount of information people are able to access about you, including the following:.

• Avoid apps that ask you for access to your personal information.
• Use the information available in your control panel on Facebook to check which apps are accessing information about you.
• Ensure that you pass the message on to friends who could be using these apps.

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Sources: Mashable ; BoingBoing ; Wall Street Journal
Image Source: No Man’s Blog