Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    MarTech Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech
    Mission
    Staff
    Newsletter
    Search Engine Land
    Third Door Media

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Marketing Operations » 1.1 Million Facebook Users’ Email Addresses Purchased For $5, Facebook Claims Data Was Scraped

1.1 Million Facebook Users’ Email Addresses Purchased For $5, Facebook Claims Data Was Scraped

Last week the internet was abuzz with the deal that Bulgarian digital rights activist, Bogomil Shopov scored. He managed to purchase 1.1 million user email addresses for the meager price of $5. The majority of the email addresses were from the US, Canada, UK and Europe and featured email addresses, user names and Facebook account numbers. Initially […]

Greg Finn on October 29, 2012 at 9:39 am

Last week the internet was abuzz with the deal that Bulgarian digital rights activist, Bogomil Shopov scored. He managed to purchase 1.1 million user email addresses for the meager price of $5. The majority of the email addresses were from the US, Canada, UK and Europe and featured email addresses, user names and Facebook account numbers.

Initially the data was believed to be secured through Facebook apps run by the list seller. The listing stated:

“The information in this list has been collected through our Facebook apps and consists only of active Facebook users, mostly from the US, Canada, UK and Europe. There are users from other countries as well but they are almost exclusively English speaking as well, as all the apps we provide are written in English and to use them properly one needs to read the instructions.”

Forbes however was told that this wasn’t an app issue – rather a public data scraping dilemma. A Facebook spokesperson gave the following statement to Forbes:

“Facebook is vigilant about protecting our users from those who would try to expose any form of user information. In this case, it appears someone has attempted to scrape information from our site. We have dedicated security engineers and teams that look into and take aggressive action on reports just like these. We continue to investigate this specific individual.”

While Facebook states that the data was scraped, Shopov told Forbes that a few of the emails he looked at were not displayed publicly. This casts some doubt on just where the data was derived from. Shopov is also using the spotlight to shine some light on the Facebook account deletion issue. After Shopov bought the data and published the initial blog post Facebook asked him to delete the purchased info. Now Shopov is making a point about the inability to delete accounts by stating that:

“And yes, I deleted the data…but maybe, just maybe I’ve deleted the data the same way Facebook deletes users’ data when he/she wants to delete his/her account…

What do I want?

I want Facebook to start removing entire user data after pressing “Delete my account”. Is this so much to ask. This is fair, isn’t it? Can we achieve that as a community?”

Touche.


New on MarTech

    Processes, visibility and optimization: The keys to digital marketing transformation
    Webinar: Grow revenue streams through web accessibility and compliance
    How to turn the great buyer resignation into B2B career opportunities
    HubSpot customers paying 12% more than in 2021
    Closing your team’s technical gap without hiring

About The Author

Greg Finn
Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides world-class social media and search marketing services and web & application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 10+ years and specializes in Digital Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.

Related Topics

Marketing OperationsPerformance Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

Agencies: Grow Revenue Streams Through Web Accessibility & Compliance

Protect Your Paid Advertising Spend Against Ad Fraud and Invalid Traffic

Build an Integrated Search Strategy Across Google, Amazon and YouTube

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

Digital Marketing Strategy Ebook

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.