Skip to main content

Facebook privacy takes another hit.


Yet again, another privacy issue with Facebook with their new Facebook Messenger app. Facebook privacy team is fighting hard to make their users unsafe. You all should stop installing it and start removing it as soon as possible.

Facebook's new Messenger service steals all your friends numbers on your phone and stores it on their internal system. And guess what ... you cannot export those numbers out of there. If you still have a Facebook account, you should remove your number from your profile, or even better, boycott it until they allow you to control the data you provide it.

Tom A:
Lots of people have been alerting me that Facebook just launched a feature that sucks the mobile phone numbers from your phone into your Facebook account. Some have said it's showing you the phone numbers of all your Facebook friends. At first I didn't see it, and I thought it was just showing me the phone numbers of Facebook friends have chosen to share. (Like its done for years) But, Lo & Behold, they are there -- about 100 phone numbers that weren't there 5 minutes ago -- and NOT just the ones I have in my phone.

To see it on your own profile -- go to "Account" (Top Right) then select "Edit Friends". Once on the page choose "Contacts" and you'll see a list of most of your friends phone numbers. If you don't see it yet, wait a few minutes. I didn't see it when the "outbreak" of fear started either.

People are freaking out left & right -- on Facebook and on G+. Should they be freaking out? Did we all opt-in to or choose this at some point? I don't think I did. But honestly, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I was ever given a choice. But let's say I was, and I did it. As did all my friends. Maybe we were all confused and opted in. Maybe nothing to get freaked out over.

That said, doesn't somebody -- anybody (!?) -- at Facebook realize that people were going to go nuts and freak out when this happens? It's shocking that they didn't foresee this and explain things to people before this happened. Is somebody snorting coke over there in a rush to get features out?

For those of you have been reading my posts carefully, you'll notice that I am not a Facebook hater. I like Facebook. I like what the service provide, and what I think they stand for and what I think they're trying to do. They are a super smart group of people, who've made an incredible number of right moves. Why is it that they keep having these privacy gaffes? Honestly, I don't know. You'd think they could have seen this blowup coming from a mile away.

====================================

You might also want to check this page (http://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications) to see all the applications you have let access your FB information.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

28th Amendment

Okay, so here is my solution to the debacle we call congress. Amendment XXVIII Reformation of Campaign Finance and Elected Office. Section 1 Corporations, business, unions and other equivalent organizations are not people. As such, they do not enjoy the rigthts, freedoms and protections enumerated in the Constitution of the United States of America as they are reserved solely for the people. Section 2 Any person seeking elected office shall only receive financing, either direct or indirect, from a person. Any contribution to a campaign shall not exceed the equivalent of ten thousand dollars per person per election cycle. Section 3 Any person duly elected to federal, state or municipal office is required to take an oath of office. Said oath much include: "I will properly execute the duties and responsibilities vested in me as ..." and "I do solemnly affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Section 4 Violations of Sec...
Post a Comment
Read more

Corporate Arrogance

Okay, so I found out last night that a group of engineers and designers have broken off from OpenOffice.org (an Oracle project) to form a new group called The Document Foundation .  They have created another version of the Freeware ... LibreOffice. Being a good bunch of folks, ."..Oracle was invited to become a member of the Document Foundation, and was asked to donate the OpenOffice.org brand to the project ...  Oracle instead rejected the project and demanded that all members of the OpenOffice.org board involved with it step down."  This is corporate arrogance. As a result, I have removed OpenOffice from all our systems and replaced them with LibreOffice. When you uninstall OpenOffice they will ask you to take a brief (and it really is brief, 4 questions) survey.  The last question asks for additional information.  Take the above "Oracle ... down." and put it there.  Hopefully (but doubtfully), they will realize their mistake.  Either way, they...
Post a Comment
Read more