Is it a good idea to use Facebook applications?
A *LOT* of people use Facebook applications.
They all seem harmless fun, in the main, such as chosing your 'top five' in all manner of subjects, taking quizzes and suchlike.
On the other hand there is a side to these programs which many people don't seem to consider.
You are allowing a third party, not connected to Facebook, access to all information you place on the site.
Many of these applications are written by harmless programming enthusiasts as a bit of fun, but many are also written purely for marketing purposes.
Tactics would include getting as many people as possible to sign up purely to use their data.
How could this information be used? Well it can be sold to marketing companies, could fall into the hands of criminals for use in identity theft or used to target you with spam and other forms of advertising.
The core data you're allowing any Tom, Dick or Harry access to includes profile information like birthdate, where you live, contact details, and private photos.
So - your information can be sold for demographic marketing information - not really too earth shattering I suppose.
More worrying is the potential for identity fraud, and also I would say that allowing access to photos could at least be potentially embarrassing, given some of the drunken exploits some people I've seen getting up to and then posting the evidence online (you know who you are). And if these were posted publicly, then your employer might be interested - with career stopping potential.
Finally, and quite annoyingly, they use underhand tactics to get you to click on things.
I have always resisted signing up, but thought I would recently to see what would happen.
When I was on the application page I noticed a banner saying 'test your IQ' and then listing a number of my Facebook friends and their scores.
I clicked on it, but didn't end up testing my intelligence - instead I was directed to a mobile text 'flirt' site, where two 'friends' had allegedly left 'flirty' messages for me.
So the moral is - don't sign up to facebook applications - they are evil.
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Ben Hurst
There is definitely something fishy about facebook these days. I have my privacy settings to "friends only" for all my account settings. This means the only person who can access my friends list would be someone already on my friends list.
How to explain then that I receive these IQ quiz challenges from a friend who IS on my contact list, from a third party provider? How does this third party provider have access to my contact list???? They have to have access to pull an actual name off my contact list!!!!
And, as you so rightly point out, many are nothing more than a trick/scam to try to get you to give your cell phone number, to sign up for very expensive SMS Premium Text subscriptions. Some of these text messages can cost $5.00 each - a very expensive lesson if you provide your number. And your cell phone provider will NOT refund your money, since you voluntarily did give the information in the first place.
I got the source code off of the "friend XXXX" challenges you to IQ quiz ad. The URL you click on sends you to a specific ad hosted by the following site:
http://ads.lfstmedia.com
LifeStreet MediaLifeStreet
981 Industrial Road, Suite F
San Carlos, CA 94070
Off their intro blurb:
"LifeStreet Media delivers actionable results for advertisers
and highly profitable revenue streams for publishers and developers."
HIGHLY PROFITABLE REVENUE STREAMS????? What an understatement for this well thought out scam.
Thank you for bringing this issue to the public. So many people use Facebook, just how many are being fooled by this scheme.
Hulloo, great blog - t'is right: Facebook applications are evil, I used to naively play the word games, do quizzes and such, until I carefully looked at the agreement that said this application will "let it pull your profie information, photos, your friends' info and other content that it requires to work." Why the bloody hell does an application need ALL this PERSONAL info to 'work'? What a load of rubbish! There are definitely a few less desirables creating crappy applications to hook people into to steal their details. I'm amazed when I see how many people actually continue to use the applications!
Laura, you bring up a good point: "this application will 'let it pull your profie information, photos, your friends' info and other content that it requires to work.'" so even if you don't allow an application it doesn't really matter because if your friends allow the same application then they have access to your info based on that wording.
Great comments chaps: the on-site information says:
"The application can access information like your personal info and photos as well as your friends' personal info (depending on their settings). Please note that your contact information (such as your email) is never available through Platform. All platform applications are obligated to respect all of your existing privacy settings when requesting this information and when displaying it to other users."
It's a real Trojan Horse in other words.
So far as I can tell there's no way of stopping it - the only answer seems to be to remove any data from your facebook page you don't want revealed.
You can't really change the settings to prevent 3rd party applications accessing your data - you have to block ALL applications which means no photos, updates etc as they're all 'applications'. You could come to the conclusion that the whole system has been created purely to allow access to your private data.
It's not nice.
So facebook applications are evil and risk sending your personal material to all and sundry for their nefarious purposes. Well I have an easy solution - switch off the PC and go and meet your friends face to face and do something fun in the real world instead of staring goggle-eyed at the PC screen. Then you might find life a litte bit more rewarding than the 30 second 'satisfaction' you get from naming chocolate bars from their wrappers, makes of cars from their chrome bumpers or whatever. Works for me
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