Facebook acknowledges temporary glitch
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 1, 2007 | 10:54 AM ET
CBC News
Social-networking site Facebook was temporarily shut down Tuesday to fix a bug, which surprised some Facebook users who found they could access other users' accounts.
Facebook members around the globe complained on various blogs Tuesday about the worrisome glitch. Some users said that after logging on to their Facebook accounts they could access other people's accounts as well as their mail. As well, some people said they were getting messages intended for other users.
Facebook told CBC News that it temporarily shut down its site Tuesday to fix a bug that it had identified earlier in the day.
"This was not the result of a security breach. Specifically, the bug caused some third-party proxy servers to cache otherwise inaccessible content. The result was that an isolated group of users could see some pages that were not intended for them. The site has now been restored, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused," said the company.
Generally, details pertaining to a Facebook member's details such as contact information, relationships and hobbies are private and hidden, unless other users seeking access belong to the member's group of friends or are part of the same school, work or city network.
Members have the option of sharing certain details, such as photos, only with specific users belonging to a certain group.
Facebook's website says, "We built Facebook to make it easy to share information with your friends and people around you. We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on Facebook; that is why we give you control of your information."
According to ComScore Media Matrix, in June 2007 there were 11.4 million Canadians who had logged on to Facebook.
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