I've had a few facebook accounts over the years, at the start I setup my account with an email such as facebook@certaindomain.co.uk it was inundated with spam, I removed my facebook account and the spam stopped, that's probably 3 years ago. My new account hasn't had any spam, but I don't install any applications.

more on the news story:
from: Facebook CEO hit with privacy questions - ComputerworldUK.com

Members of the US congress confronted Zuckerberg with a series of privacy questions about the sites apps

Two members of the US Congress Tuesday hit Facebook with a series of questions about the latest privacy issues surrounding the site's most popular applications.

U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Edward Markey, D-Mass., co-chairmen of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier today seeking information on Facebook security features and on reports earlier this week that some of most popular applications made for the social network, such as FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille, have been sending users' personal information to dozens of advertising and Internet monitoring companies.