Let's get this clear from the start: If you want to find out which celebrity you share a birthday with, just type that person's name into a search engine rather than clicking on a Facebook link promoting the "Celebrity Birthday Game."
It sounds innocent enough, but the birthday game, currently spreading through wall posts on the giant social network that ask, "Which celebrity was born on the same day as you?" is actually a rogue application that requests access to your profile information, including your entire contacts list.
From there, the app, which advertises itself as either "Celebrity Birthdays Game" or simply "Celebrity," asks permission to post status updates and photos to Facebook on your behalf, according to the scam watchdogs at Facecrooks.
"Do you really want to let an unknown developer have this much access to your Facebook information?" Facecrooks wrote.
Continuing to follow the "Celebrity" app's instructions will take you to a survey scam; in this case, users are promised either a $500 Victoria's Secret gift card or a $1,000 Best Buy shopping spree. Ironically, the survey, which won't give you either of those prizes, advertises itself as method of verifying "that you are not a spam-bot."
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
If the desire to see what famous person you share a birthday with proved too strong and you took the bait, you can clean up your Facebook profile by removing references to the birthday app from your news feed, and removing the actual app from your Facebook account by clicking on "Account Settings" and then "Apps."