Software

Facebook likes are automatically being added to web pages even if a user has not clicked a like button, or even visited the page in question, it has been revealed.

A security researcher site found that simply sending a web address to a friend using Facebooks private messaging function would add two likes to that page.

The site said that leaving a comment on a story within Facebook also adds to the tally, the BBC reports.

"Many websites that use Facebooks like or recommend buttons also carry a counter next to them. This counter reflects the number of times people have clicked those buttons and also the number of times people have shared that pages link on Facebook, the site explained.

"When the count is increased via page shares, no user information is exchanged. We did recently find a bug with our social plug-ins where at times the count for the Share or Like goes up by two, and we are working on fix to solve the issue now," it added.