by Leigh Goessl

Created on: July 30, 2010

In July 2010 security consultant Ron Bowes used programming code to scan Facebook profiles and collected data over 100 million users who did not use privacy settings to protect their information.  Once the data collection was complete, he uploaded the file on the web and made the file freely available for download.

Bowes did omit certain information in his file that would be deemed by most to be 'personal' such as phone numbers and addresses which may have been visible (it is not clear whether or not he collected it or just chose not to keep it in the file), however the file did contain the URL, user name and unique ID of every member not masked by privacy settings.

Immediately thousands of web downloads ensued with people eager to grab the information either out of curiosity, to see if their own name was listed or to take the list for more sinister intentions.

When Bowes took the information and made it into a nicely concise file, this act ignited a whole new round of privacy discussions, especially those related to Facebook. The company had already recently taken a large amount of disapproval in the media and as a result, once again Facebook is facing criticism about privacy issues, which seems to be a common theme for the company in 2010.

Bowes had claimed he published the file to highlight privacy issues, and Facebook responded to Bowes' actions by stating the information was freely available anyway. The company released a public statement which said "People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want". The company made it clear that no privately set data was compromised.

Basically their stance is users had either chosen not to use or did not properly use privacy controls offered by the social networking giant, in which they do have a valid point. However on the same token the company hasn't always exactly made their privacy controls easy to navigate and there have been enough instances when Facebook tweaked their features, all set privacy controls set were wiped out for many users and the default reset, unbeknownst to the member.

The act of publishing such a large neatly packaged file raises huge privacy issues as it does not take a rocket scientist to visit the URLs and subsequently claim all the information which is readily available, which could put 100 million Facebook users at privacy risk thanks to Bowes' actions. Without the consolidated list, this information

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