Stealth installs and adware come to Facebook
Already under fire for taking liberties with users' privacy, Facebook was outed on Thursday as a distributor of unwanted applications, some of which install adware or are added to user profiles without permission. As noted earlier by PC World, the social networking site silently adds apps to profiles whenever a user is logged …
What?! Facebook is having security issues with spyware and non-consensual app installations?! INCONCEIVABLE!!!!
er, remind me why I have a facebook account again? Oh right- to click on "ignore pesky app that user invited me to add several dozen times, several times a month" in my inbox when I can be arsed to logon to it.
What comes next? I neither know nor care right now, but no doubt when it comes it will piss off those of us who value our privacy even more than Facebook has.
This almost makes Buzz look good.
Nothing more.
Fail, well why not?
to avoid the tat that is facebook et al....
"adds apps to profiles"? They have to ask permission if they want to add a tab to your profile, access your personal details, photos, friends, etc. They only thing they can do without it (and, I think, what you're talking about) is be added to the list of apps you use.
Malware is a giant pain in the arse, no doubt about it, but this has nothing to do with what Facebook does and doesn't let you do- you don't need any access to a user's profile to show them a dodgy link.
From their policy 'We have a dedicated team that conducts spot reviews of top applications and of many other applications, including looking at the data they need to run the application versus the data they gather.'
This means applications can access more data then they need and they can access data through a friends accout about you.
So, all those friends of your's that you share with who play Farmville are giving your details to Zynga.
Don't believe me look for the following app on Facebook 'What Do Facebook Quizzes Know About You?' from the American Civil Liberies Union (www.aclu.org). This really opened my eyes to what apps really have access to,
"Some freedoms have to go if the system itself is to survive."
...I feel ill.....
Did somebody accidentally cross-link to Dick Cheney's blog?
And I'll say it again. Facebook should be put down like the rabid dog that it is.
The ONLY thing important to social sites like Faceplant and twatter is MONEY, they could care less about your security or personal information.
PEDANT RANT
Oh FFS..!! It's "couldn't care less". Saying they "could care less" insinuates they care in the first place, which blatantly they fucking well COULDN'T.
/PEDANT RANT
Shush. 'Could care less' works if you think of it as being the shortened version of 'I could care less, if I really put my back into it, but it would be such a great effort that I'm not prepared to do it'. See? Stand down now.
Sorry Sarah, it's not just spelling something wrong/differently, it's getting it an expression completely back-arse-wards.
I have my cheese & pickle sandwiches now, so I promise to settle down quietly...
_This_ is the correct icon for a pedant rant....
See?
....where USians say it the way you're objecting to and Brits say it the opposite way.
I use a slightly different version that works for everyone which goes "I know not, and care less!"
Oh, no nononono
He might have been able to have use it in that context, if he had.
But he didn't. He said "they could care less" emphasis being on "they" not a shortened version of "I could care less". That would mean he said "they I could care less" which is nonsense.
Quite clear. Original poster stand back up. Sarah, sorry, you can sit down now.
It's funny that I sit on the pedant side of the fence on this one, I'm normaly on the "couldn’t care less" side.
non mi frega niente (preferably said with a Brooklyn Italian accent, and a strong sneer on the 'frega')
I think the end is in full swing.
I don't know why, but Facebook does not seem to have ever understood that trust is very valuable, hard won and almost impossible to replace or rebuild.
It's a pity
Whenever I see Facebook stories here, I keep thinking of the South Park episode "You have 0 friends".
Well you're a fucking idiot if you clicked on this.
"Oooh tits... what? They live near me you say?" Clickety click click click. Fucking imbeciles.
Just horn-dog teenagers who are that desperate. Most of them will outgrow it in time...
"But she was _searching_ for me..."
Just maybe there's someone that should be using Apple's app approval process
for those of us who have just been waiting for the end of the whole MyFaceSpaceTwit web culture. It goes all the way back to the mid 90s when it was pioneered by Aol. Each successor to the throne has had a shorter and shorter time to wear the crown. How many iterations will it take before people wake up to the fact that they are being lied to and bought, sold and traded like cattle by these companies? Face the inevitable, the next big social website is going to be run by the 'non-evil' guys and will probably be named googlenet or gsocial. And once you sell your soul to them for free access to a 21st century chat room you will have NO secrets left.
Just checked my applications list and had three new ones, all Gawker Media pages. I was a fan of one on FB, but not the other two.
I'm closing my FB account. This is goddamned ridiculous.
Bull Shit! one can still get to facebook. The bug won't truly be fixed until that bastard site is shut down.
of top applications. How about full reviews of all applications, before you host them.
There's an oxymoron if ever I saw one. :(
What Facebook user privacy? ... Facebook want to exploit users, so Facebook don't want user privacy and their actions (like this news) keep proving their exploitative attitude. :(
Just checked my apps to block them, accidentally clicked on another app's link from the formers profile page (due to delays in remote desktop), and lo! their application was auto added with no confirmation.
Bug has NOT been fixed and yet again facebook are lying through their teeth.
I hope every one of them gets infected, and worse. Could happen to a more deserving bunch of 'people'!
Maybe people will realise just how tragic they are.
For heaven's sake, get a grip FFS.
If you don't like Facebook ... here's the news ... it's not compulsory. You are allowed to go through life without a Facebook account. You are even allowed to stop your children using it. It really is a case of user beware. The Internet is not a nursery. It's full of the same people that inhabit the city streets at night. And some of them want to rob and rape you. Or your children. Your duty of care to yourself and your children hasn't gone away just because you're a social networking site. Technology doesn't fix people and their behaviours. It just makes whatever is going to happen, happen faster and more efficiently.
It's nice to know that they have a well established "close the gate after the horse has bolted" application policy. I feel much better knowing that now.
Apple's app-vetting process doesn't seem such a bad idea now.
"added to user profiles without permission."
Permission from who!?! It's their own fucking website! They can do what they want with it and the data from the muppets that live their lives on there.
Well I never.
Somehow I find it hard to raise any sympathy for people who trust their data security and their spare time to sad activities like Facebook.
I wondered why the Facebook API was returning information on Apps for me that I definitely hadn't installed, maybe this is why. On the other hand, the Facebook API is so broken I don't trust it any more than I trust Facebook privacy.
How does third party x know that you are logged in to Facebook, and under which account, in the first place? What communication takes place between which parties?
I am curious to know.
(btw, "Google it" does not constitute a useful answer to any question, merely an admission of ignorance and the desire to still get credit for that ignorance. Where do you think Google gets the answers to these questions in the first place?)
More likely while you are logged into Facebook, FB is monitoring the other web sites you visit and was storing that data. The fix for the "bug" about the apps appearing in the users application list doesn't mean they've stopped gathering that information, it just means they have stopped displaying the associated apps in your profile. If we're lucky, they aren't auto-loading the apps in the background and just hiding it better.
Facebook -- the most bloated tracking cookie on the whole internet.
We need a Mark Zuckerberg Devil Horns icon.
Paris, because her FB page is so _interesting_
Love FaceBook? Love P2P? Then you'll love P2-Book!!
Yep, some sad lonely muppets are already trying out Facebook the Facebookers, Diaspora or whatever the bloody thing is called!
http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/04/21/a-little-more-about-the-project.html
Facebook is a private company running a website service.
That service is provided free.
They can do what they like. If you don't like hat they do, don't use their service, or start your own.
Too many people feel that facebook is a fundamental right they have.
... whatever happened to showing one's displeasure by simply not using the offending system.
There's almost always some alternative. I'll admit that some systems are harder to circumvent than others (google, for one), but people seem to get way too attached to these ephemeral "services".
Many crappy sites and products proliferate because people refuse to let go.
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