<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, epinions]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, epinions]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/epinions http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/epinions <![CDATA[Facebook app exposes user information to search engines]]> uhohFB.jpgMicrosoft paid $240 million for less than 2 percent of Facebook, but Google's getting a peak behind the curtain for free. According to reports, there's a vulnerability in the Facebook application Compare People, made by a company called Chainn. The app allows a search engine such as Google to rifle through the information of any users who have the app installed on their profile. That's about 10 million Facebook members, according to numbers from AllFacebook. What kind of user information is available?

Oh just profile information, such as age, gender, city, ZIP code, favorite music, favorite movies, favorite TV shows, favorite books, "about me," activities, interests, and political views. What, not addresses and Social Security numbers? Even more disturbingly, there's no information about Chainn on its website — just an email address. AllFacebook.com found that the chainn.com domain is registered to Naval Ravikant, a cofounder of the shopping-review site Epinions.

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<![CDATA[Nirav Tolia goes to Benchmark]]> Nirav ToliaThe rehabilitation of Nirav Tolia is not just complete — it is, at long last, confirmed. The cofounder of Epinions, though tarred by old controversies, will announce tomorrow morning that he has, indeed, landed a long-rumored spot at Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence. (Back in March, Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton was told by several people Tolia was heading to Benchmark.) He'll be joined there by Sarah Leary, a former Epinions executive, and both hope to look at startup ideas having to do with online community and user-generated content. (We'll hold our tongue.) Tolia called Valleywag to share the news.

Of his past transgressions, which included doctoring his resume to say he worked at McKinsey (he hadn't) and completed his Stanford degree (he later finished it), he had this to say: "I did it, it was wrong, it was dumb, I won't do it again." And he had news of interest to Valley oldtimers: He's thinking of restarting Round Zero, the '90s boom-era networking group famed for its lavish dinners and raucous arguments.

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