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Facebook Opens Up Home Addresses and Phone Numbers
An anonymous reader writes "Do you really want third-party app developers on Facebook to be able to access your mobile phone number and home address? Facebook has announced that developers of Facebook apps can now gather the personal contact information from their users. Security firm Sophos describes it as 'a move that could herald a new level of danger for Facebook users' and advises users to remove their home address and phone numbers from the network immediately."
I wanted this. Now to post when Ex is on vacation, and let THEM CLEAN HIM OUT !!
You would be FUCKING STUPID to put your home address and phone numbers on facebook at all..
3rd party devs want access to people who are that stupid. they are worth money. alot of money.
I don't see any issue here.
Easier option :
Account - Privacy Settings - Apps and Websites (Bottom) - Turn off platform apps
Bye bye Farmville / Cafe World / Fortune cookie notifications.
Bye bye info sharing with ueseless apps.
I have yet to find anything I miss from that pile of junk.
It seem not jut your information, but also you friends.
I noticed this for some apps:
Access my friends' information
Birthdays, Religious and political views, Family members and relationship statuses, Significant others and relationship details, Home towns, Current locations, Likes, music, TV, movies, books, quotes, Activities, Interests, Education history, Work history, Online presence, Websites, Groups, Events, Notes, Photos, Videos, Photos and videos of them, 'About me' details and Facebook statuses
Why on earth would Facebook want to give this information to third parties, and worse to ones you have not given permission to, but your friend has.
Troll me if you want, but, while i do find this appalling, i cant feel sympathetic to people who post up their personal, private information for their "friends" to see and then later become victims. There's no valid reason for people to put it up and just leaves them vulnerable to exploitation (see previous facebook slashdot story), especially if you're not required to post it (and if you were, use fake data). Someone wants your address? let them ask it you for it.They want to call you? let them ask you for your phone number in person. Or by private email. At the very least you'll have control over who gets it and who does not, rather than people you randomly friended over time and have no idea who they are (yes, it happens).
I've kept my profile (almost) empty for over a year now - believe me when i say you won't miss your data not being up there for the world to see...
It really is a gold mine for identity theft in the wrong hands.
Most phone support for companies only need Phone number, address and DOB for an identity confirmation and all it takes is for someone to get access to someone's credit card account for them to be able to completely steal their identity for dodgy bankloans or being able to get drivers licenses/passports.
Why is this modded funny?
Because you are asking addicts to give up their crack and expecting them to say "oh ok sorry about that".
Reduction to the absurd is itself absurd. By shooting any woman who gets pregnant of course we can eliminate all of society's problems, including facebook "privacy", within 100 years. But exactly how useful is that as an argument?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
OK, do we need to go over this again? Any information that you wouldn't write on a giant poster and hang up in a public place should NOT be in Facebook. Period.
Hopefully this will hurry along the end of Facebook, condemning it to live out its days with AOL and the like. It's truly an annoying entity since so many people use it, and so many people are dumb.
Dumb people have an overwhelming need to feel special, important, and the center of attention. That's why they also like to create drama incidentally. Facebook is an absolute magnet for them. I will laugh with glee if they get stung by this. Hey, you *wanted* attention - now you got it, from Marketing!
Idiots will always surrender precious, irreplacable things like privacy for a little temporary gratification. Gets 'em every time. Their failure to recognize and learn from the many, many mistakes of other idiots is why they remain such idiots, why it's not a temporary condition.
This is totally different from things like driving or voting where idiots might cause suffering to non-idiots. For that I am grateful.
I've spent the afternoon working with the Facebook API.
As far as I can tell you can only get this information if the user specifically allows you access to it.
If you have a sample of code that gets around this, please post.
Otherwise, STFU.
If you aren't even a facebook user, you might want to add the antisocial subscription to adblock,
since those little facebook icons are just as useless as the social bookmarking buttons of yore, but more viral.
Ya'll blame FB, but I think I'm tossing Google in the "bad guys" column for now because it was the GOOGLE phone book which, um, "raped" my FB friends' accounts without asking. (Wait for it:)
New android phone yesterday (HTC Incred., Froya build, not rooted yet), I sign in with Google which is okay (or *was*). That shit knew one of my facebooks! Asked me to log in; I didn't. I went online with laptop to Google Accounts, and it's got some "suggestions" of FB and other accounts that MAY be mine. (I'm still considering major deletion of Google incl. Gmail, plus FB; not sure what to do).
Today I use the HTC Facebook app and log in, thinking it was separate from the Android, but I guess FB can "talk to" Google apps? — and my PHONE CONTACTS list was suddenly, um, ENHANCED. Noted, some phone contacts I had addresses and other info (not birthdays, etc), but now my phone contacts are all LINKED to their facebook accounts, and I've got phone contacts I didn't have before.
Noted, I haven't had much time to investigate this, because I feel like I've RAPED my FB friends. (I'm ACTIVELY working on this w/ my most paranoid friends first.)
I never put my private stuff on FB accts, EVER, even the 'real' emergency FB acct one with only a few family members as friends — they KNOW how to contact me. And my phone number hasn't [yet?] been added to FB. But now, my Android phone book contacts include FB frends that weren't on my phone originally, and my phone contacts have more information (their FB stuff, I guess) that I didn't enter on my own.
Now maybe it is the FB app (which came with the Android phone) that allowed for this; or user error (I'm new to Android); but I'm messaging the affected FB friends that either they remove what they don't want public, or adjust the privacy settings. My BEST advice is what I read above: delete FB. I'm contacting Verizon tomorrow with some complaints about privacy; even if FB puts it out, their android phones with pre-installed apps like FB shouldn't grab it (esp not without my express approval).
After a while I moved onto Grammar Nazism
Hmm...
I could of kept going
You're an illiterate asshole.