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The majority of Facebook users customize their account settings to ensure the privacy of personal information. But did you know that by participating in Facebook games and quizzes, you are actually un-doing all the steps you took to keep your profile hidden? These seemingly harmless time-passers are actually applications that run in your web browser and pull information from your profile. That means that by agreeing to run these applications, the person who created them can view things like your age, sexual preference, political views, and so on. Whenever this happens, you run the risk of having that information abused and/or sold to a third party for snooping purposes. This year, Canada’s privacy commissioner raised his concern over this risk and threatened to take action against Facebook. Facebook has responded by implementing rules and monitoring how the applications are run—but many of these changes will take over a year to perfect.

To learn more about why your Facebook profile isn’t as private as you may think, listen to the story.

By Catherine Faas.