Are Facebook Applications Trust Worthy?
I would generally operate under the assumption that companies who develop stupid applications for Facebook are going to be sleazier than Facebook: Pieces of Flair is the Web 2.0 incarnation of Bonzi Buddy. As well, the people who invite me to silly applications like Mafia Wars or Ninjas vs Pirates and so on are… annoying. Facebook friends who invite me to apps like those don’t stay my facebook friends- it’s like I’m being sent spam, except that it’s acquaintances who are doing it.
Rogue Application Exploited Facebookâs TOS to Target its Users Facebook shrugs off warning to vet potentially malicious programs (Many more examples can be found by Googling malicious Facebook applications or similar terms.
You should know that unless you specifically turn it off, applications your friends install have access to all of your data that those friends can see even if you do not install them. This is one of the nastiest pieces of default privacy settings about facebook in my opinion, so if you don’t want apps seeing all of your data you should not only not install any apps, but block the ability for apps installed by your friends to grab your info. Check your application privacy settings for more details. Now, technically they are not allowed to store that info for more than 24 hours but I still think it sucks and it’s only as good as facebook’s ability to catch violators and enforce the rules.
