This is exactly the problem with social networks today; they leave their users vulnerable by collecting way too much data. I found a new social network called SomethingCoolHappened.com that is supposedly safe guarding (based on their blog somethingcoolhappened.blogspot.com) their members by not asking for a lot of identifying information. In this day and age I think this may be the safest way for online interactions to take place.
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"THE PRIVATE DATA" really? wow. bad journalism. or maybe just journalism at its worst. :(

The data was harvested, not leaked.

The data was accessible by anyone, a 5-year-old could have manually looked it up, he only automated the process and saved it to a file.

Did you know that there is a book being distributed to people's doorsteps with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of everyone in the country who didn't opt out. It's big with white pages, and there is another one with yellow pages which has the details of businesses in it.

Surely, this is a major privacy violationthat has been going on for years?

There is a new social networking experience coming this fall. It's called somethingcoolhappened.com. You can go there now to view a preview video and to preregister. With this site you can interact with friends, create your own unique avatars, upload videos, pictures or stories of something cool that happened to you or someone else! You also get full anonymity. It is going to be awesome! Check it out.

Think of this site as more like a combination of YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and then something totally brand new. With this site you will get your anonymity back, no more personal information floating around being sold off and you will get to be creative, compete with other people if you wish and just have fun in a great positive atmosphere.

here is the link
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5722635/Facebook_directory_-_personal_details_for_100_million_users

currently 2,500 seeds and 8000 leechers,
thats 10K downloads in space of 2 hours, or groth of 1000% in 2 hours, nice

The data wasn't private. It was accessible by anyone who typed it there fb urls correct your article to reflect this.

hahaha
serves them right

GET A LIFE!!