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Old 19 Jan 2011, 01:09 AM   #1
kaptitsky
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FaceBook Gives Devs access to address, phone # etc

According to this story in the Guardian, Facebook has shown developers how to access information given by users including home address and phone number.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...me-address-api

Facebook assures us that this is merely to help developers service clients better and offers no privacy risk.

You can control some of this through privacy settings, as just deleting current data may not be enough.

Or you can just delete your account.

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact...delete_account
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Old 19 Jan 2011, 01:41 AM   #2
David
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From what I read yesterday, the sharing of private information (email address etc) will only happen if users explicitly enable this. It is not enabled by default.
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Old 19 Jan 2011, 04:07 AM   #3
EdinwolfPA
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Just came across this article while surfing the Internet this afternoon, Tuesday, January 18th, at 2:04pm EST

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news...-now?GT1=43001

Thought I would share it with everyone

David
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Old 19 Jan 2011, 09:05 AM   #4
robert@fm
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01...ebook_privacy/
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Old 19 Jan 2011, 06:23 PM   #5
chrisretusn
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Interesting reading. I'm not to worried about this at any rate. My address and phone numbers are not, and will never be entered in Facebook.

This Facebook quote in the Facebook: Now sharing your home address with developers | Technology | guardian.co.uk is a bit off the mark, actually I find it to be quite false. Emphasis mine
Quote:
"On Facebook you have absolute control over what information you share, who you share it with and when you want to remove it. Developers can now request permission to access a person's address and mobile phone number to make applications built on Facebook more useful and efficient. You need to explicitly choose to share your data before any app or website can access it and no private information is shared without your permission. As an additional step for this new feature, you're not able to share your friends' address or mobile information."
One example of why this is false. Take any picture in your Facebook account and copy the image URL. It does not matter what your privacy settings are. Make it Friends Only, even Only Me. Log out of Facebook, clear your cache, etc. That URL will be still be accessible by anyone not just those on Facebook.

Example of such an URL:
Code:
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/hs034.snc6/166456_170179873026893_removed_372552_2448170_n.jpg
You do not have absolute control over what information you share, who you share it with and when you want to remove it.

I tested this out with two photos I added to my my profile. I set both to Me Only. Both pictures are accessible. This mean I do not have absolute control. In fact I have since deleted those to photos and both are still available at the links I saved.

Last edited by chrisretusn : 20 Jan 2011 at 10:52 AM.
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Old 28 Jan 2011, 04:07 AM   #6
Tsunami
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How many times more I have to say it, I don't care, but Facebool is evil. It is the online version of Brave New World and 1984 at the same time: people overwhelmed with (pointless) data, meanwhile throwing overboard their own privacy and not even caring when they know just as well that people are having access to their data.

And MySpace isn't much better...

I still have to receive a somewhat useful answer to the question what Facebook has to offer that the average pub (for friends in your home area) or email or Skype (for distant friends) does not offer. So far not a single answer to that question could convince me.
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Old 28 Jan 2011, 07:56 AM   #7
hadaso
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David View Post
From what I read yesterday, the sharing of private information (email address etc) will only happen if users explicitly enable this. It is not enabled by default.
But they will enable it if the application asks for it as a requirement during installation (just like most people gives full administrative control of their PC to any application that requires it during installation).
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Old 28 Jan 2011, 10:12 AM   #8
David
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hadaso View Post
But they will enable it if the application asks for it as a requirement during installation (just like most people gives full administrative control of their PC to any application that requires it during installation).
You are saying that they will allow it (without consent) even if a persons privacy settings specifically disallow it?

For the record, Facebook will be introducing additional safeguards (very soon)

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=486790652130

I cancelled my own Facebook account (by the way) over a year ago.
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Old 30 Jan 2011, 08:46 AM   #9
hadaso
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David View Post
You are saying that they will allow it (without consent) even if a persons privacy settings specifically disallow it?
I am only saying that most peple would give their consent to an application that asks for it if they want to use the application.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David View Post
I cancelled my own Facebook account (by the way) over a year ago.
I never had one (well, except for one fake account I used to access it once, and since then I get some message to "Dear Doris" every once in a while in the spamgourmet address I put there).).
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Old 16 Mar 2011, 08:37 AM   #10
dragon1
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I canceled out my Facebook account after having it opened for a couple of months last year primarily because of the privacy issue and because people (men) I didn't even know wanted to be friends. Even after I went through all of the profile pages to close the loopholes I felt uneasy. So I closed the account, though Facebook calls it "deactivating" the account in case I want to re-open it. Yeah, right.

If it's just deactivated, that means they have my profile copy stored in some server somewhere, doesn't it? Great...

Last edited by dragon1 : 16 Mar 2011 at 08:39 AM. Reason: add on
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Old 16 Mar 2011, 01:36 PM   #11
chrisretusn
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dragon1,

Please go here: How do I permanently delete my account? - Facebook Help Center | Facebook

You will have to reactive your account first, logging in will do that. Then follow the procedure in the above link.

I have done this with my youngest daughter and a friend or two, after about 15 days the account is deleted. I have verified that none of the accounts I have deleted are no longer available.
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Old 17 Mar 2011, 02:34 AM   #12
dragon1
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Thanks for the tip, chrisretusn. I'll do as suggested.

~Janet
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Old 4 Apr 2011, 11:48 PM   #13
marcus0263
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It's rather simple actually

Anything and everything you put out onto the net is there, forever. It's archived, data mined, stored, sold, shared, etc. etc. etc.

So simple rule, never put anything out on the net that you want to keep private, that is unless you manage your own server and lock it down tight.
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Old 6 Apr 2011, 07:27 PM   #14
Tsunami
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisretusn View Post
dragon1,

Please go here: How do I permanently delete my account? - Facebook Help Center | Facebook

You will have to reactive your account first, logging in will do that. Then follow the procedure in the above link.

I have done this with my youngest daughter and a friend or two, after about 15 days the account is deleted. I have verified that none of the accounts I have deleted are no longer available.
But how did you verify that? Did you do a search and did you check if previous "friends" could no longer retrieve your profile neither? I too want to permanently delete my (defunct) account (which is de facto gone, since I have stopped signing in about 1.5 year or 2 years ago) but I heard too many horror stories where the account just becomes hidden but remains existing.



Also, please see this topic ; one of the reasons why I am afraid that signing in to LuxSci would also sign me in to Safe Mail (I ordered the LuxSci account giving a Safe Mail address as correspondance address) when signing in to LuxSci from a public PC, is that Facebook can import contacts from your address book in your mailbox. How does Facebook do that without signing in to your webmail account in order to access your address book?

In theory the link between Safe Mail and LuxSci ends with the fact that I used the Safe Mail address to sign up with. But when I read Facebook can somehow manage to get into your account and copy the email addresses from your address book, I do feel a bit confused.



As for FB I stick to my earlier statements. It is a waste of potential. It would be so handy to exchange real info on for example travel arrangements, whom to contact to request an entry visa, which employers recruit in which cities, .... But to find that useful info amongst the pointless posts, is looking for a tiny needle in a huge haystick. Add the policies of Facebook to that, and it's reason enough for me to stay away from it. People who really want to make new friends (and stay in touch with old friends) and socialise for real, should get Couchsurfing or HospitalityClub instead of Facebook. And those sites organise plenty of real-life (offline) meetings too. A lot more efficient and a lot more effective for the purpose of socialising than any of those profile services.
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Old 7 Apr 2011, 05:21 AM   #15
marcus0263
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tsunami View Post
But how did you verify that? Did you do a search and did you check if previous "friends" could no longer retrieve your profile neither? I too want to permanently delete my (defunct) account (which is de facto gone, since I have stopped signing in about 1.5 year or 2 years ago) but I heard too many horror stories where the account just becomes hidden but remains existing.



Also, please see this topic ; one of the reasons why I am afraid that signing in to LuxSci would also sign me in to Safe Mail (I ordered the LuxSci account giving a Safe Mail address as correspondance address) when signing in to LuxSci from a public PC, is that Facebook can import contacts from your address book in your mailbox. How does Facebook do that without signing in to your webmail account in order to access your address book?

In theory the link between Safe Mail and LuxSci ends with the fact that I used the Safe Mail address to sign up with. But when I read Facebook can somehow manage to get into your account and copy the email addresses from your address book, I do feel a bit confused.



As for FB I stick to my earlier statements. It is a waste of potential. It would be so handy to exchange real info on for example travel arrangements, whom to contact to request an entry visa, which employers recruit in which cities, .... But to find that useful info amongst the pointless posts, is looking for a tiny needle in a huge haystick. Add the policies of Facebook to that, and it's reason enough for me to stay away from it. People who really want to make new friends (and stay in touch with old friends) and socialise for real, should get Couchsurfing or HospitalityClub instead of Facebook. And those sites organise plenty of real-life (offline) meetings too. A lot more efficient and a lot more effective for the purpose of socialising than any of those profile services.
In regards to LuxSci, separate accounts you have nothing to worry about LuxSci. I've had them for years (around 5 or so) and I'm very satisfied with not only their service (best there is IMO) but their privacy and security polices.
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