According to USA Today Zynga is facing a class action lawsuit because of breaches of privacy. From the article:
In a statement released by the lawsuit’s co-lead attorneys, the filing claims Zynga violated federal law and its contract with Facebook by sharing the user data of players on games such as FarmVille.
“This appears to be another example of an online company failing the American public with empty promises to respect individual privacy rights,” said Michael Aschenbrener of Edelson McGuire — a co-lead attorney for the lawsuit — in a statement.
Here’s a video clip of Mark Pincus. On stage he says, “I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenue right away.” And then he goes on to further bury himself.
What do you think will happen? Will you disconnect from Zynga games? Do you trust Facebook?
Pincus deserves to be hammered for this behavior, but this isn’t limited to Zynga. There are other companies that are tied into Facebook. The Wall Street Journal wrote about this the other day. Here is the url (http://ht.ly/2Xfww)
Many of the most popular applications, or “apps,” on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people’s names and, in some cases, their friends’ names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.
The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook’s rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users’ activities secure.
So interesting because at Digital Hollywood this week, all these social gaming companies, like Zynga and Playdom, are being held up as the Holy Grail. Playfish sold last year for $400 million, Playdom this year for over $500 million. Apparently the big fish want to own all your info, too — maybe they just want the Mark Pincus’ of the world to collect it all first and take the hit instead of them…
#1-the douchery is breathtaking.
#2-at what point did we stop teaching our young to take off their caps in public?
#3-no, I’m not 75 years old (in case that last remark had you wondering) and no, I won’t be deleting my Zynga games because I never got suckered in to begin with.