Have a Facebook account? Then you’ve probably heard of Farmville, Mafia Wars, Zoo World, and other online games, whether you play them or hate them. If you haven’t, your kids have probably heard of them. These applications have tens of thousands of online fans.

Tried to play these games recently? Upon logging in, you’ve probably spotted something a little bit different. Many of these games now require you to provide your email address in order to keep playing. Blogger Deb Manzella has recently been drawing attention to this shady behavior, and for good reason.

Farmville and Zoo World aren’t the only Facebook applications requiring users to provide personal details before playing. Today, almost anything you install from Facebook will ask for permission to draw details from your profile and your friends list. Though many of these games tell users that this information is required in order for the application to work correctly, this is not always the case.

In addition, Facebook also has the ability to sync with the address book linked to your email address to suggest people for you to friend. Blogger Manzella said that thanks to this feature of Facebook, the site suggested that she “friend” her plumber and the paralegal working for her divorce lawyer. Though this may seem innocuous, such links provide important clues for identity thieves.

When taken together, all of these ways for Facebook and the games offered through the site to collect your personal information present a real danger. Not only that, but users themselves post personal details to their own Facebook pages. The site has become a huge database containing the personal information of millions of members worldwide.

If identity thieves can find away to get to this information, you can bet that they will do so. By using applications like Farmville, your personal information becomes widely shared. If you want to protect this information from identity thieves, the best thin to do is avoid signing up for these online games. No matter how fun they look, it is not worth the risk.

Avoiding these applications isn’t enough to protect your information when it comes with Facebook. Also be aware of how much information you’re sharing and who you “friend” on Facebook. Avoid connecting with those who have a professional relationship to you, even if you are also friends. If you do decide to cast your social net wider, remove personal information such as your address, date of birth, and email address, from your profile. Set your privacy settings so that those who aren’t your friends cannot access personal information about you. Otherwise, identity thieves may use the information you post – from your place of employment to your plans for Friday night – against you.

Consider protecting yourself with a service like Lifelock. Read a detailed lifelock review here.

The downside to all this “connectivity” is that it opens the door for online identity theft. Any online communication, whether it’s posting on Facebook, email, instant messaging, or simply surfing the web, increases your risk. There are numerous online threats waiting to steal or con you out of your personal information. Taking a few simple precautions can drastically reduce the chances online identity thieves can access your private information. Today we’ll begin a series on “How To Secure Your Online Presence”.

You can improve your online security by:

• Installing the right software to protect your computer.
• Avoiding software that can harm your computer
• Protecting your network
• Using strong passwords
• Practicing safe email habits
• Shopping online with care
• Familiarizing yourself with known scams

We’ll go into each of these categories as we begin our series but probably the greatest protection is the eye of experience. A majority of the online fraud occurs due to simple consumer negligence and ignorance. If you’re going to have an online presence: online banking, social networking, online gaming, you must be security conscious. Don’t leave sensitive information where everybody can see it.

Online identity thieves use technical knowledge, an understanding of online commerce, internet security, and combine them with age old scams to trick online users. They may not go through your mail or break into your own like traditional identity thieves but the goal is the same-to steal your personal information for their own amusement and profit.

Online identity theft is not only being perpetrated by individual scammers, but also by large rings, many of which make money by selling your sensitive information on underground websites. One of the most notorious was Shadowcrew.com, an online marketplace with over 4,000 members. Before the Secret Service brought the site down and arrested many of its members, the site had trafficked in over 1.5 million stolen credit card numbers and stole over $4 million dollars.

Today’s virtual identity thief could be the shy geek next door or a highly skilled criminal mastermind. Chances are, you’ll never find out. But these high tech criminals have one thing in common with their traditional brothers, they like to target easy marks. If you understand how they work and how to protect yourself, you can safely use the technologies they target without having your identity stolen.