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Shadow profile

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A shadow profile is a collection of information pertaining to an application's users, or even some of its non-users, collected without their consent.[1] The term is most commonly used to describe the manner in which technological companies such as Facebook[2] collect information related to people who did not willingly provide it to them.[3]

History

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In 2012, a data breach of over six million Facebook users' personal information indicated the existence of a number of shadow profiles, since the leaked information had not been provided by the users themselves.[4] Consequently, Facebook began linking users' shadow profiles to their respective public profiles.[citation needed] The combined profiles were then further shared with the users' friends if they used Facebook's Download Your Information (DYI) tool.[ambiguous][citation needed]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Garcia, David (August 2017). "Leaking privacy and shadow profiles in online social networks". Science Advances. 3 (8): e1701172. Bibcode:2017SciA....3E1172G. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1701172. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 5544396. PMID 28798961.
  2. ^ Brandom, Russell (11 April 2018). "Shadow profiles are the biggest flaw in Facebook's privacy defense". The Verge. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  3. ^ Debatin, Bernhard; Lovejoy, Jennette P.; Horn, Ann-Kathrin; Hughes, Brittany N. (October 2009). "Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 15 (1): 83–108. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01494.x. ISSN 1083-6101.
  4. ^ Newton, Casey (April 12, 2018). "The data Facebook collects without permission". The Interface (Newsletter). Vox Media. Archived from the original on October 6, 2021. Retrieved November 12, 2020 – via Revue.