Facebook Game Producer Sued for Privacy Infringements

Zynga, developers of many popular Facebook games including Farmville, Mafia Wars and Texas HoldEm, are being sued (class-action style) in Federal Court for supposedly transmitting sensitive personally identifiable information about their users. Zynga users are forced to provide information such as name, gender and address when registering. Passing this personal information onto a third party is a violation of Facebook’s own ‘privacy policy’, as well as certain state and federal laws. The Wall Street Journal recently carried out an investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices, and found that many Facebook apps transmit personally-identifying information.

If the lawsuit is successful, Farmville users will be compensated with three cows and a donkey each. *snicker*