Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Olivia Munn Proactiv Facebook Ad August 30, 2015

Olivia Munn Proactiv Facebook Ad August 30, 2015.

Facebook tweak reveals addresses, phone numbers

In what is potentially another privacy misstep, Facebook has made a change to a permissions dialog box users see when downloading third-party Facebook apps–a change that potentially makes users’ addresses and phone numbers available to app developers.

The tweak was made known to developers of third-party apps Friday night, by way of a post on the Facebook Developer Blog. Basically, when a person starts downloading a third-party Facebook app, a Request for Permission dialog box appears that asks for access to basic information including the downloader’s name, profile picture, gender, user ID, list of friends, and more. What’s new as of Friday is an additional section that asks for access to the downloader’s current address and mobile phone number.

As mentioned in numerous media reports, the concern among Facebook users and privacy advocates is that users won’t notice the change and will click the dialog box’s Allow button unthinkingly. Further, people are worried that unscrupulous developers could cook up bogus apps with the sole purpose of capturing the private information–apps that wouldn’t necessarily be spotted and taken down immediately. Aside from the potential for outright hacking and identity theft, it’s not unheard of for app developers to sell information on Facebook users to data brokers.

Screen capture of the Friday post on the Facebook Developer Blog,  showing the newly tweaked Request for Permission dialog box, with  addition of address and phone number section.

Screen capture of the Friday post on the Facebook Developer Blog, showing the newly tweaked Request for Permission dialog box, with addition of address and phone number section.

(Credit: Screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

Users of third-party Facebook apps can simply click the Don’t Allow button–which reportedly won’t interfere with a successful download–or they can remove their address and phone number from their Facebook profile.

Graham Cluely, with security company Sophos, suggested in his own blog post that users do the latter. (The post was brought to our attention by PC Magazine.)

“My advice to you is simple,” Cluely wrote, highlighting the following with boldface text, “remove your home address and mobile phone number from your Facebook profile now.” (CNET’s Larry Magid walks you through that simple process here.)

Cluely also wondered if Facebook could have taken a safer approach.

“Wouldn’t it be better if only app developers who had been approved by Facebook were allowed to gather this information?” he wrote. “Or–should the information be necessary for the application–wouldn’t it be more acceptable for the app to request it from users, specifically, rather than automatically grabbing it?”

CNET e-mailed Facebook a request for comment but hadn’t heard back by publication time.

Privacy was a major issue for Facebook last year, with the company provoking the concern of privacy advocates, lawmakers, and social-networking fans alike.

Source :

Trapped kids update Facebook rather than ring police

Very much in the category of ‘you couldn’t make this up’ comes the news that two girls trapped in a storm drain in South Australia chose to update their Facebook status to get help – rather than ringing the emergency services.

The South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service has expressed worry that the two girls – ages 12 and 10 – chose to turn to social networking rather than ringing triple zero, the Aussie equivalent of 999.

Apparently the two girls found themselves lost in a drain in a surburb of Adelaide.

Fortunate

Fireman Glenn Benham told ABC News it was fortunate that someone was online and able to call emergency services when he saw the update.

“It is a worry for us because it causes a delay on us being able to rescue the girls,” he said.

“If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones, they could have called 000, so the point being they could have called us directly and we could have got there quicker than relying on someone being online and replying to them and eventually having to call us via 000 anyway.”

Surely they should have know that a Twitter update would have been WAY more effective. That’s a joke kids…

Source :

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/trapped-kids-update-facebook-rather-than-ring-police-632661?src=rss

Yahoo vents frustration over App Store process

Yahoo appears to be a little miffed that Apple’s App Store reviewers are still sitting on an update to the Yahoo Messenger for iPhone application.

Yahoo’s ready for the new Yahoo Messenger for iPhone update to be released.

(Credit: Yahoo)

In a post titled “And so we wait…on Apple,” Yahoo’s Sarah Bacon calls out Apple for “the somewhat unpredictable process for getting apps approved and released” on the App Store. Yahoo said it submitted an update for the Yahoo Messenger app (iTunes link) two weeks ago, but has nothing to show for it.

Now, as App Store approval delays or rejections go, two weeks is nothing. Yahoo could just ask Sling Media how it felt about the month-long delay in the approval process for SlingPlayer Mobile, or rival Google about the rejection of Google Voice from the App Store. But Yahoo’s decision to publicly call out Apple is interesting, given the possible thawing of relations between iPhone developers and Apple following Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller’s outreach to bloggers and developers.

“Anyone want to bet that Facebook’s app, which was submitted after ours, gets approved first?” Bacon asked. No action, Yahoo, especially now.

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10313434-265.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Facebook gets Twitter-like search

New users to Facebook (and probably some existing users, but not all of them yet) are getting a new search experience in Facebook starting Monday. The new interface for search makes it possible to see all public results from Facebook users (the Everyone filter), or just results from your friends. Or, as before, only Events, Groups, or Applications.

The Everyone filter is the key new feature. It lets Facebook users monitor the entire network for news and updates on big topics, the same way Twitter was consumed for information coming from Iran after the recent election.

Like Twitter Search, the Facebook search result page alerts you when new results come in that match your query, but it doesn’t update the whole page until you ask. This is arguably the best way to keep people up to date without overwhelming them.

Full Story…

CNETNewsFacebook gets Twitter-like search http://bit.ly/15uYoI

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