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Facebook has banished an application from its site that appeared to tell users they were the subject of a secret crush, but was in fact spyware in disguise.
The Secret Crush application appeared to users as a message supposedly from a friend who it appears is sweet on the recipient and invites users to download the software to find out who this might be.
However, in fact the widget is a social worm which includes the Zango adware/spyware application as part of the so-called Crush Calculator.
Users are also asked to provide contact details of a further five friends, who are then in turn also exposed to the scam.
However, upon discovery of the widget by security firm Fortinet, Facebook administrators have now banned its use on the social networking site.
A statement from Facebook said: "Facebook is committed to user safety and security and, to that end, its Terms of Service for developers explicitly state that applications should not use adware and spyware.
"We have contacted the developers and have disabled the Secret Crush application for violating Facebook Platform Terms of Service."
It is estimated that up to 1.5 million users had downloaded Secret Crush before Facebook took action. 
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