Facebook steps up third party app controls

Social networking giant Facebook says it has taken more steps to ensure that third-party applications do not share user information with advertising companies.

“Today, we are clarifying our policy to ensure that developers understand the proper use of UIDs (user identification data) in their applications,” the company said in a statement.

“Our policy has always stated that data received from Facebook, including UIDs, cannot be shared with data brokers and ad networks.”

The statement comes after the company learned that some developers had been inadvertently sharing their information. Some, it said, were actually paid for information.

“We have proposed a technical solution to prevent this sort of transfer in the future,” Facebook said. “In addition, we are working with browser vendors to address this issue more broadly across the web.”

The announcement comes as Facebook has attempted to improve its security over the last few months, especially in the area of user privacy.