Facebook, already one of the world’s largest and most successful social networks, is constantly seeking ways to improve on itself. Hats off to you, boys (and girls); that’s admirable. Improving user interaction and satisfaction is something a lot of sites ignore once they go “big time.”

Part of their push to improve things is through the use of applications on your Facebook profile. These applications look fairly benign and offer a variety of little gadgets. Wanna sip virtual cocktails with someone? They’ve got an ap for that. Wanna play Oregon Trail (er, Northwestern Trail) like you’re in 3rd grade again? They’ve got that available, and many more, all available at the click of your mouse.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Giving people more, for free. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch in sunny Silicon Valley, and in this instance that fact remains especially true. The thing about those Facebook applications that many people don’t realize is that when you add it to your profile you are giving the developers of those applications access to all the information in your profile.

MSNBC has recently written about this and we’ve grabbed some of the more poignant bits for you below:

In February, MySpace also opened up to developers. It has more than 1,000 applications. The company, along with other social networks such as Hi5 and AOL’s Bebo, allows applications under OpenSocial, a Google-led initiative that lets developers distribute games and other programs across multiple social networks.

Each site has come up with its own policies on the data that developers are allowed to see. MySpace, the largest social network, with 110 million members, said developers can see users’ public details — name, profile picture and friend lists — when they download a program. When a user installs one on Facebook, which has 70 million members, the developer can see everything in a profile except contact information, as well as friends’ profiles. Members can limit what is seen by changing privacy controls, and both companies say developers are allowed to keep those data for only 24 hours.

Developers can collect other data from members once they’ve download the applications.

{SNIP}

About 90 percent of the applications have unnecessary access to private data.

And, as the woman who compiled all this data is quick to point out, once the data has been transferred to a 3rd party server Facebook can do nothing to control the information.

If that’s not enough to scare the scrabble out of you, there’s a security risk as well, as the article notes:

But revealing information on quizzes or maps of places visited, for instance, may also make it easier for strangers to piece together tidbits to create larger security threats,

Some online activities ask users to list pets’ names or to display their high school’s mascot, answers to common security questions asked by financial companies.

In the modern world where Internet privacy is paramount you have to educate yourself about every move you make online.

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