THE WALL STREET JOURNAL has dumped a huge pile of manure onto Facebook's and MySpace's so-called privacy policies. Hacks at the WSJ discovered that Facebook, MySpace and several other social notworking websites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers' names and other personal details. This is despite promises that they don't share such information without consent.

Basically the sites have been sending user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users click on ads. After reporters asked about the practice Facebook and MySpace moved to make changes and apparently Facebook has rewritten some of the offending computer code.

The advertising companies had been receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation.

Google 's DoubleClick and Yahoo's Right Media said they were unaware of the data being sent to them from the social notworking sites, and said they haven't made use of it.

Craig Wills, a professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute said that most social networks haven't bothered to obscure user names or ID numbers from their web addresses. He warned that the websites might have been breaching their own privacy policies as well as industry standards.