Bits from Bill
Facebook in Pink is Not Cheap
Facebook continues to be a fertile ground for crooks to steal personal information and nobody really seems to care. The message going around this week appears to be an application to change your Facebook color from Blue to Pink or several other colors.
I honestly don’t know if this is real, although my gut say it’s a scam. Even if it isn’t a scam what Facebook users will give up is hardly worth changing the screen color to pink.
Take a look at what you’re agreeing to as part of changing your screen color. The one that is most annoying is “list of friends” so if any of my friends use this app, my name and FB ID have been transmitted to a company which doesn’t provide a name, privacy statement or legitimate address. This screen is not from Facebook. They already have all our information.
Before you click Allow would you think twice after reading “…may post on my behalf, including status updates, photos and more”? Sorry to my Facebook friends who fell for this but who in their right mind would agree to this? I can tell you the numbers are high. Last count was 39 thousand.
The final touch is “…access my data when I’m not using the application”. That’s so vague I’m sure most people will skip merrily past this incredible give-away and click on Allow.
In my job I really have to be on Facebook so I can learn about these scams but I’ve stopped recommending the service to others. The folks at Facebook are laughing all the way to the bank not caring who they allow to create apps that many of our friends will fall for. Their motto is “Sharing is good”.
I really want to rant and rave more about this type of Facebook behavior but I know everyone is going to keep using it. I just ask, please take the time to read the screen. In many cases, it’s my information you’re giving away. If one of your friends tells you about a pink theme, just move along to the next cute photo of a dog or baby.
Also Read:
Who Gets Your Personal Information on Facebook?
Facebook May Not Be For Everyone
Facebook Wants Your Pre-Teen
posted by Unknown | 9:49 PM
1 Comments:
This is an increasing trend for a lot of apps on facebook. They want to post on your behalf without any further permissions. On the surface, this is meant to be things like "Please send me a cow for farmville" or some such like that. Which is why so many people now ignore it when it says they want to post on your behalf. I never have - any application that wants to post on my behalf I delete.
It is facebooks fault for allowing any application to post photos!
The problem is that most apps now ask for all three of those things, so many users don't seem to be aware of the danger. Which to me seems crazy - they post their most innermost private thoughts on facebook, and yet are happy to give up all that to some random application from some person they have never heard of. CRAZY!
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