Facebook and other social networking sites are immensely popular. Millions of citizen have joined these sites to stay in touch with friends, meet new people, and share details of their lives. As part of the fun, some citizen create elaborate, eye-catching profiles. You can add applications that list your top friends, add games, quizzes, graphics, and more to your profile. Are these add-on applications unsafe to use?
Recently, Facebook had to remove the popular application that lists your top friends because of privacy violations. The application let users see partial profiles of anyone on Facebook, which included data on birthdates and association status. This is a potential protection issue also, so the application was removed and revamped. The qoute with these applications, though, is that they are run by third parties and not by Facebook.
Facebook App
The applications can interact with your personal data and that of the citizen on your friends list. This can be fodder for anyone from telemarketers to identity thieves. Most citizen don't read the warnings and are not aware of the potential danger of uploading these applications to their profiles. Facebook itself doesn't take responsibility for these applications. In the user business transaction every member gets, Facebook states:
[W]hile we have undertaken contractual and technical steps to restrict potential misuse of such data by such Platform Developers, we do not screen or approve Developers, and we cannot and do not guarantee that all Platform Developers will abide by such restrictions and agreements.
In other words, it may or may not be safe. It is up to you to decree what is safe and to take steps to safe yourself online. If you want to add applications to your Facebook page, make sure you run virus checks. Also make sure that you have some data on the application company. Read reviews from other citizen who have used the applications and make good decisions. With a phone at least you can do a phone number search to see who is calling you; it is not so easy to see who is behind social networking site applications. Be cautious so you keep your data private.
Are Facebook Applications Unsafe to Use?
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