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Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

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Re: Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

#41

Post by jschuur »

andysinclair wrote: post #26

But how many people have added their full address and phone number to their Facebook profiles anyway? I would bet that the majority of people have their city/town set and not their full address and won't have specified their phone number at all. However, this really could be quite useful if used legitimately, i.e. Facebook commerce, having shipping address available; location aware apps etc.

I use Facebook for my friends. Why wouldn't I add my real contact details?

I'm not afraid of my friends.

Re: Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

#43

Post by jschuur »

nhangen wrote: post #37
ssclafani wrote: post #2

Less sensational headline: Facebook Now Allows You to Share Your Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

If this is true, then why was it announced to developers and not users?

It's announced to users where it matters: when they are asked for permission to share their data.

Re: Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

#45

Post by gergles »

EGreg wrote: post #29

I've been developing Facebook Connect applications for a long time, and I'm wondering - hasn't facebook had this feature already for email addresses? One of the permissions read: "Send me email" (optional: send through a facebook proxy) So now, you can also let the apps know phone number through the graph? I don't find that too big of a step. CAN-SPAM still applies. Perhaps they should set up proxies for the phone nu…

Letting your friends export your information through a facebook feature is substantially different than letting any shady "Platform" app get it.

Re: Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

#46

Post by tlack »

btipling wrote: post #38
jdp23 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has refused to provide that option.

They used to provide this option but it actually made the API harder to work with. You could deny or approve one permission at a time and the developer had to handle it (and by handling that really meant always checking for permissions before actions and bugging the user for the permission whenever they tried something that required it). As a developer I prefer the new way, which is also how Android development works…

Are you sure? Unless I am misremembering, much of the Facebook code I see and write verifies permissions after they are accepted to see what you actually got.

Re: Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

#48

Post by gergles »

ChipsAndSalsa wrote: post #30

The idea of allowing users to control what individual permissions they have is good in theory, very hard in practice. It faces two main challenges that I can think of: 1) There are UI issues that have been raised elsewhere in this thread - mainly, that users get confused when shown a set of complex options. Having watched usability studies where users are given a lot of relatively complex options, I'd suspect that a…

"Remove malicious apps" doesn't undo the damage they caused. A reactionary approach only works until the first gigantic breach occurs, at which point people will finally start to ask "why do I have to give ShittyGame every permission under the sun?"

It's the same on Android. Why do I have to give any app that wants to display ads in my face permission to read my phone number and device serial number? Hell, on some carriers that's all you need to clone the phone and steal service from it. What possible reason could there be for that? It's poor design, and there's no reason I need to give "Bob's Fun Game" my telephone number just so it can have a unique ID to datamine later. Generate one on startup and use that.

The problems are similar and the solutions are similar - line-item veto for permissions, period. If your app can't handle it, crash - I'd rather have a broken app than risk my privacy for it.

Re: Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

#49

Post by nhangen »

jschuur wrote: post #43
nhangen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is true, then why was it announced to developers and not users?

It's announced to users where it matters: when they are asked for permission to share their data.

Ok, so tell me -

1. Does this apply to current developer/client connections? 2. Will the connection request specify that you are giving consent to address & phone #? 3. Will you be given the option to specify which data you give to applications or will it continue to be all or nothing?

I'm not a user advocate, but I can tell you this - I'm tired of FB constantly glossing over the details.

Re: Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

#50

Post by nhangen »

nhangen wrote: post #37
ssclafani wrote: post #2

Less sensational headline: Facebook Now Allows You to Share Your Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

If this is true, then why was it announced to developers and not users?

Just want to add that the parent, which I've been downvoted for, was in response to this, and not the OP:

"Less sensational headline: Facebook Now Allows You to Share Your Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps"

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