Top News - Social-networking apps can pose security risks

Turns out, even the privacy-conscious Sarah Browns of the world freely hand over personal information to perfect strangers. They do so every time they download and install what's known as an "application," one of thousands of mini-programs on a growing number of social-networking web sites that are designed by third-party developers for anything from games and sports teams to trivia quizzes and virtual gifts.

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People often think Facebook profiles and sometimes MySpace pages, if they're set as private, are only available to friends or specific groups, such as a university, workplace, or even a city.

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But that's not true if they use applications.

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News Corp.'s MySpace, which has about 117 million unique visitors each month,

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giving developers access to the profiles of anyone who downloads them

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MySpace users don't have to include their names on their profiles.

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