PLAYING GAMES ON FACEBOOK CAN COST YOU YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably had friends ask you for help raising a barn in Farmville or to play some other game. But, those apps aren’t free: Your personal information is the currency you use to play. When you or your friends sign up, the games’ developers collect all of your personal information, along with that of your friends. To block those apps’ access go to Privacy Settings, then Applications and Websites, then uncheck everything under What Your Friends Can Share About You. While Facebook says it disables apps that violate its rules, from a survey done by Consumer Reports, they estimate that 1.8 million computers were infected by social-network apps in the past year.