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TakeThisLollipop - really clever/creepy use of the Facebook API

takethislollipop.com

101–110 of 143 posts

Re: TakeThisLollipop - really clever/creepy use of the Facebook API

#101

Looks like it's connected with the ad agency Evolution Bureau ("EVB") (clients: [1]), the same people who did the Office Depot-braded "Elf Yourself" sensation [2]. Why do I think it's EVB? This is the only other site on the same IP as manipulation.com, and manipulation.com is registered clearly to EVB. The agency's creative work is consistent with this project too. [1] http://evb.com/work/ [2] http://elf.evb-archive.…

On Twitter, EVB's CEO said they didn't do the site.

http://twitter.com/#!/danielstein/status/126322020152651776

Re: TakeThisLollipop - really clever/creepy use of the Facebook API

#102
post #3

Care to explain for those without Facebook accounts?

It's an example of how much personal data you actually leak through Facebook illustrated through a movie of a crazy serial killer browsing Facebook, with nicely done overlays of your actual personal data that the app pulled from you.

Since when does "leak" equate to "explicitly grant permission to access"?

It is not like the app is getting information that some random hacker can access, at least if you have any privacy controls set on your Facebook profile.

Re: TakeThisLollipop - really clever/creepy use of the Facebook API

#105
One interesting thing about how this was designed, it for some reason doesn't get your location from your facebook profile. It uses your IP address, which led to hilarious results because while my facebook rightly says where I am, I was using a SOCKS proxy to access this in a different city and when it showed him looking at a map it showed the route to my SOCKS proxy instead of me. I guess I'm safe and the crazy guy won't kill me :)

Re: TakeThisLollipop - really clever/creepy use of the Facebook API

#106

Looks like it's connected with the ad agency Evolution Bureau ("EVB") (clients: [1]), the same people who did the Office Depot-braded "Elf Yourself" sensation [2]. Why do I think it's EVB? This is the only other site on the same IP as manipulation.com, and manipulation.com is registered clearly to EVB. The agency's creative work is consistent with this project too. [1] http://evb.com/work/ [2] http://elf.evb-archive.…

It's at least the same director as Elf Yourself, according to the actor in it (https://twitter.com/#!/billoberstjr/status/12611132567074816...).

Re: TakeThisLollipop - really clever/creepy use of the Facebook API

#108
post #68
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it actually funny or surprising to you, given your hosts configuration, or did you just want to mention it?

Surprising, because I'd totally forgotten about it and really wanted to see what this was all about (after reading some of the comments here). So I thought to myself 'ok, this once' knowing I'd be sticking my head out. It took me a minute or two to realize the cause and I thought that was a nice side-effect of solving this at the DNS layer, even when you're momentarily stupid this will still create enough of a barrie…

i'm guessing that you actually have a bunch of other sites blocked in your hosts file, as well. on the assumption that you do, do you ever see any network performance issues related to this? i used to maintain a rather large hosts file for this purpose, but eventually gave it up because i suspected that it had started doing more harm than good.
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