Facebook Policy Change Lets Apps Ask for Your Phone Number, Address
Facebook Policy Change Lets Apps Ask for Your Phone Number, Address
Posted 01/18/2011 at 6:33am
| by Paul Lilly
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Heed this warning, privacy advocates: Facebook apps are now allowed to request access to your phone number and address, Facebook developer Jeff Bowen announced.
"We are now making a user's address and mobile phone number accessible as part of the User Graph object," Bowen said. "Because this is sensitive information, we have created the new user_address and user_mobile_phone permissions. These permissions must be explicitly granted to your application by the user via our standard permissions dialogs."
The announcement drew immediate criticism from users, who posted their concerns in the comments section below the announcement.
"Before you even consider implementing this very intrusive feature, Facebook needs to stop the scammers from making rogue applications and scamming people," Facebook user Tony Mazan wrote.
The general consensus seems to be that there are few, if any, reasons why a developer would truly need this information, making the risk far outweigh the reward.
What are your thoughts on this policy change?
Image Credit: Facebook
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Eve
July 29, 2011 at 10:35am
I deactivated my Facebook profile and it’s much better this way. It was a nightmare. I found pictures of myself on another profile, there was a girl who was pretending that those were pictures of her. I found out that she was making money online with this. She was telling guys that she was very ill, poor and of course very beautiful. And they were sending her money. So, I guess you understand why I don’t want to hear about Facebook anymore. It was supposed to be an innocent an free social network.
Silencer
August 21, 2011 at 8:08pm
* * * W A R N I N G ! * * * * * * W A R N I N G ! * * *
- - - > YOUR LINK SPAWNS A VIRUS. < - - -
(Microsoft Security Essentials blocked it on my computer.)
(If anyone needs removal instructions, (I'll check back later,) just let me know... If you CAN! LOL!) (Try F8 > Safe Mode with Networking.)
lo_tek
January 20, 2011 at 4:47pm
I'm glad I deleted my Facebook account. Not just deactivated it, I mean scrubbed it clean. Had to jump through AOLesque hoops to get it done, but I did. Never again will I ever even think about even visiting any Facebook profiles or pages or whatever. I'm not sure why people are flocking to Facebook and just giving perfect strangers their personal information. /facepalm
Silencer
January 19, 2011 at 10:23pm
Facebook wants their user's phone numbers and addresses. Seems pretty obvious. Marketing reasons.
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