Facebook Takes Legal Action Over User Profile Scraping

[engine]

Facebook is taking legal action against two individuals that developed browser extensions for Chrome to scrape Facebook user profiles and other data not related to Facebook.

When people installed these extensions on their browsers, they were installing concealed code designed to scrape their information from the Facebook website, but also information from the users’ browsers unrelated to Facebook — all without their knowledge. If the user visited the Facebook website, the browser extensions were programmed to scrape their name, user ID, gender, relationship status, age group and other information related to their account.

[about.fb.com...]

[mcneely]

... all without their knowledge.

Pot calls Kettle black

[engine]

Pot calls Kettle black

hehe

But, but, but, they do tell you somewhere in the thousands and thousands of words in their TOS. :)

[jayright]

Okay, but now Facebook profiles have security, there is an option to lock your profile so whats the benefits of scraping those profiles?

[engine]

...whats the benefits of scraping those profiles?

Profiling and theft, and the many millions that haven't taken precautions.

[alipress]

hahaha, just like one big mafia tells the thief " how dare you! do you want to rob the robber?".