Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Not magically but legally different: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/04/dnc.shtm. It is illegal to cold call mobile numbers and Facebook should be held liable for any crimes committed by the selling of this information.
On my new phone, I put in my facebook account for shits 'n giggles, and my phone imported my friends list and all their contact data. I now have a couple dozen phone numbers for people that I was never given directly by the owner. When that happened, I just kinda shook my head in wonder. Now with this story, I'm damn glad I've got absolutely minimal information on my facebook account.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
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.
Android only grabs information your friends have already made available to you. You can go any view any of those phone numbers manually on facebook.com when you're logged in. You're correct to warn friends that they are publishing a phone number, if you know they wouldn't want it published. This isn't android's fault though, it's just collecting the information your friends have made available to you on facebook.
Google 'knows' about your facebook account because you're presumably putting some information on your public profile; it looks at facebook account names, compares them to your google account name, and takes a guess at a match. It's trying to be helpful! I find adding facebook data to my phone quite handy, as there's contacts on there (with say, email addresses) that update their information when it changes, I don't have to update it manually my end. It also syncs with the calendar for birthdays, etc.
Note - it's a one way sync. Android (and google) don't put any of your google contacts into facebook. They just pull information from your logged in account to combine with your phone contacts. It doesn't copy any of it to your google contacts or phone contacts, it keeps them separate. It does auto show facebook contacts and google/phone contacts together when they have the same name. You can turn *that* off under the contacts settings, and you'll see them as entirely separate lists.
If you want to turn off the facebook integration, just goto settings/accounts and remove the facebook sync account you have there. That's what's linking your phone to facebook.
I don't know about the HTC app, but the samsung one that came with my phone uses the underlying android facebook sync. So when you logged into the facebook app, you gave it permission to well, connect to your facebook profile. Facebook do have their own official app and widget in the android market - IIRC, it does also autosync with contacts and calendar, but you can turn that off and still use the app.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.