Like all Facebook users, I get a ton of requests for Birthdays, Favorite Person, Calendar, Sunsets, Flowers, Sea Creatures, Games, Plants. I have only allowed Plants, Sea Creatures and perhaps one or two others. There are many more available. It is not wise to allow all of these applications.
Just because Facebook offers: Flowers, Plants, Sea Creatures, Birthdays, Favorite Person and so on and so forth, doesn't mean you should allow all of them. Here's why:
These applications MAY expose your profile and privacy to third-party applications, without your knowledge.
Back in May, this was a huge issue, as it was discovered that millions of users had had their profiles breached without their knowledge.
Quoting Ryan Ringle of WIRED, May 25, 2008:
"Popular social networking site Facebook announced, to great fanfair, a system that lets developers build new applications using Facebook user profile data, but one privacy advocate charges that the site failed to give users enough notice about how their personal data can end upon new websites without ever choosing to let that happen.
Thanks to the new system, Facebook users could find themselves having their looks publicly voted on at the Facebook extension site CampusRank.com, if anyone in their circle of friends nominates them. In fact, they could end up on that site or others and never know about it, since these sites can get data about you from anyone with the right to see your page on FaceBook." - Ryan Ringle, WIRED, May 25, 2008.
Facebook now warns users in their Terms that this may happen.
"Third Party Applications and Connect Sites
The "Facebook Platform" is a set of APIs and services that third parties may use to (a) create applications for use on the Facebook Service ("Applications") and (b) enable their websites to work like Applications ("Connect Sites") through Facebook Connect ("Connect"). Applications and Connect Sites will be referred to together as "Applications/Connect Sites," which should be read as Applications and/or Connect Sites.
If you authorize an Application or allow a Connect Site to connect with your account on the Facebook Service, you agree that such Application/Connect Site can (a) access information on the Facebook Service related to you (including your profile information, friends and privacy settings) and (b) generate and publish news feed and other stories about actions you take on such Application/Connect Site without any additional permission. If you want to change the information that Applications/Connect Sites can access, you may modify your privacy settings. If you no longer want these news feed or other stories to be published, you can disable this feature by changing your application settings. If you, your friends or members of your network use any Application/Connect Site, such Applications/Connect Sites may access and share certain information about you with others in accordance with your privacy settings.
Once you allow a Connect Site to connect with your account on the Facebook Service, you will be able to use your login information for the Facebook Service to log into and interact with your friends on that Connect Site. In order to make Connect possible, you agree to allow us to check your cookies for the Facebook Service when you are visiting Connect Sites. When your friends connect their account on the Facebook Service with a Connect Site, Connect will enable them to find friends on the Facebook Service that may also be users of that Connect Site and invite them to use Connect as well. If you do not want your friends to be able to invite you to connect on a Connect Site, you may change your privacy settings to disable this feature. Even if you have not gone through the Connect process, you may be able to authorize a Connect Site to generate and publish news feed and other stories about an action or all actions that you take on that Connect Site. If you want to change your settings for that Connect Site, visit your application settings."
This is something to think about.
Privacy on Social Networking sites is THE hot topic of 2009.
How do I know this?
I have a news alert for this topic. Believe me, it supplies me with plenty of good information. About which you will be hearing much more in the near future.
My Google alert on Privacy in Social Networking supplies me with more tips than all my other Google alerts combined.
Other social networking article:
Attention Gatherers who post content on Facebook: You might want to read about FB's new TOS
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Comments: 49
I rarely go there and when I do....I'm bombarded with flowers and candy and spankings......well...the spankings are ok...but way too much of the other stuff.
Thanks for posting this article, Kathryn.
Thanks, Kathryn.
Whatever you do on the Internet anywhere - I would be VERY WARY ABOUT POSTING PHOTOGRAPHS, even with a watermark.
People can steal and make derivative work and it will cost a bundle to take them to court. This is much more true of visual or musical works because that kind of thievery is much more common than with written works.
I would love to read more about your discoveries about all such websites.
I had an application there called Zoosk. I removed the application and sent a request that they no longer send me updates. But, every time I log into Facebook, there's an update from them on the lower right corner. It's like a virus.. Don't ever have Zoosk on your profile.