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ACLU Warns of Privacy Concerns about Facebook Apps

Posted 08/27/09 at 09:26:58 AM  by Paul Lilly

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As it turns out, taking Facebook quizzes and posting for the world (or at least your network of friends) to see exactly "What Sex and the City Character Are You?" or "What is Your Vampire Power" isn't just incredibly lame, it's also pretty risky, suggests the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who warns of privacy concerns.

"Millions of people on Facebook who use third-party applications on the site, including the popular quizzes, do not realize the extent to which developers of quizzes and other applications have access to personal information. Facebook's default privacy settings allow nearly unfettered access to a user's profile information, including religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, photos, events, notes, wall posts, and groups," the ACLU warns.

The ACLU thinks Facebook should be doing more to protect its users and suggests that the social networking site upgrade its privacy controls so that quizzes can only see what people want them to see. One way to do this, the ACLU says, is to make the process for apps to access a user's friends' data opt-in rather than opt-out.

Facebook doesn't deny the ACLU's concerns, and in an email to Cnet, said it generally agrees with the ACLU's recommendations. The Facebook spokesperson also said the site has recently disabled hundreds of apps that were inconsistent with Facebook Platform policies.

COMMENTS:7
TAGS: Software, Privacy, facebook, Social Networking, ALCU
COMMENTS
avatarGive the guy a break

Submitted by bear on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 8:47am

 Oh, come on, give the guy a break. Accronyms misspellings are especially difficult to catch since spellcheck doesn't catch them. Given the consistent use of the incorrect accronym I would venture that the author, along with ~5% of the US population, suffers from a lack of phonemic awareness.

 

===============================================
then (adverb) \'then\: denotes time
than (conjunction) \'than\: denotes comparison
ex., 1 is first, THEN 2; but, 2 is more THAN 1.

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avatarSo The ACLU....

Submitted by Comic Book Guy on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 5:17pm

So, the ACLU only speaks up after the Canadian government covered all of this, and has since forced facebook to change their privacy policy, the ACLU is extremely late to the game!

Comic Book Guy

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avatarI think you mean. . .

Submitted by da_samman on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 8:16am

I think you mean the ACLU, guys.  SPELLCHECK!!

Sincerely yours, from Fort Lewis, WA

SGT Samuel E. McClard II

Life's a journey, enjoy the ride!!

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avatarI think you mean...

Submitted by mrvander on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 10:28am

I think you mean "PROOFREAD!!"

I know of no spellcheck that corrects the acronyms for proper names of organizations.

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avatarALCU?

Submitted by bear on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 8:15am

 I'm pretty certain that the correct accronym for "American Civil Liberties Union" is "ACLU". Any reason to not write it correctly?

At least the error is consistent.

 

 

===============================================
then (adverb) \'then\: denotes time
than (conjunction) \'than\: denotes comparison
ex., 1 is first, THEN 2; but, 2 is more THAN 1.

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avatar maybe they need to get A

Submitted by nekollx on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 10:34am

 maybe they need to get A CLUe

------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.

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avatarFacebook

Submitted by Scatter on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 7:38am

The fact that Facebook has recently disabled hundreds of apps that were inconsistant with it's policies is probably something that Facebook doesn't want to brag about.  The fact that they were disabled means that they were at one point enabled which means that Facebook members were put at risk.  Making a users data opt-in instead of opt-out seems like a no brainer to me but of course there's probably advertising and money involved somewheres which is why this hasn't been implimented yet. 

 

 

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