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Here are the principles under which Facebook operates: -- You have control over how your information is shared. -- We do not share your personal information w

Here are the principles under which Facebook operates: -- You have control over how your information is shared. -- We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want. -- We do not give advertisers access to your personal information. [clip] Ahahahahahahahahahahahahah. This is why Queerty and Pandora silently installed applications on my profile and had access to my data without me opting into anything (I've never used Connect or anything like it). Or why Instant Personalization was turned on automatically. You pissed off a population of users, arguably who are tuned-into this discussion and many of which are technical enough to call you on your BS. The candy coated, lets see how little we can get away with, isn't going to work. In fact, it's only going to make things work. If the new settings are good, good. Maybe they will avert some of the mistrust that many view towards them. I certainly won't forget the shit that went down on my profile w/o my permission in the last 2 months. Maybe an apology, an admission of a bad idea, etc would be more convincing. At least Google had the stones to say, rather quickly, Oops, sorry, we shouldn't have done that.

eob 16y ago
How does Facebook claim to make money if they also claim the above points?
- nano81 16y ago
  They make money through demographic targeted advertising. If you try out the process to set up an ad, you'll notice that, as an advertiser, you never receive anyone's personal information. That seems in keeping with the points above.
  - david 16y ago
    Actually, they are known for making it pretty hard on advertisers. They're rules for what ads are acceptable are pretty strict, to the point where showing almost anything other than just a plain description of your product/service can be interpreted to break the rules. Most ads that you submit get rejected on sight, but if you post the same exacting thing at another type of day it gets through. Mainly their ad platform is surviving because the sheer volume of impressions they can serve is hard to ignore. Other than that, they damn sure aren't making it easy for advertisers to give them money.
- robryan 16y ago
  I guess they don't actually give advertisers your information, the way the point is written. Advertisers target and they match to people in the target, as good as giving information, just not that way it's worded.
- petercooper 16y ago
  Last number I saw was that Facebook makes ~$75m a year from selling "virtual gifts" alone.
crystalis 16y ago
Beacon, too.
papachito 16y ago
> This is why Queerty and Pandora silently installed applications on my profile There is no way for an app to install on your profile without your permission, it's just not in the API and I see no reason why Facebook would give them access to a secret API. Are you sure you didn't sign in to Pandora with your Facebook account? This is a pretty serious accusation. I'm no facebook fan but we need to be honest in our criticism if we want to be credible.
- char 16y ago
  From what I understand, what you say is true. When you go to Pandora, a bar pops up, on which you have the option to click 'No, Thanks'. If you click it, they won't have access to any of your Facebook information.
  - sp332 16y ago
    The Instant Personalization is opt-out, not opt-in. App admins are supposed to delete you data when you opt-out, otherwise they have access.
- Derrek 16y ago
  I bought tickets on Fandango and later found the Fandango App in my FB profile. I never installed it or approved it--it just appeared. To me, that's simply wrong.
  - nano81 16y ago
    "Facebook spokesperson David Swain contacted us and confirmed that the appearance of unauthorized apps was a bug: In this case, there was a bug that was showing applications on a user’s Application Settings page that the user hadn’t authorized. No information was shared with those applications and the user’s list of applications was not shown to anyone but the user. This bug has been fixed. It does appear that unauthorized apps are no longer being added to users' pages, however any unwanted applications that were previously added will still need to be removed manually." http://www.macworld.com/article/151087/2010/05/facebook_addingapps.html http://www.macworld.com/article/151087/2010/05/facebook_addi...
ajg1977 16y ago
"We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want." Apart from all the personal information that Facebook doesn't allow you to hide from non-friends, non-Facebook members, and search engines.
- jjs 16y ago
  It appears that you can fix that now in the privacy settings. That said, I still consider the initial "outing" of fan pages to be a huge breach of trust.
  - jarek 16y ago
    I consider my 200 x 160 px profile picture personal information, or at least I would had I not purposefully uploaded a picture in which you can't see a thing at that size. Can't hide that. Then there's the "This information, such as your Pages and list of friends, is still public, so it could appear elsewhere on the site and be accessed by applications you and your friends use" note on top of the Friends, Tags and Connections privacy page, which doesn't seem to be true at the moment, but which is very unnerving nonetheless. I consider my friend list on Facebook to be personal information.

eob 16y ago

How does Facebook claim to make money if they also claim the above points?

nano81 16y ago
They make money through demographic targeted advertising. If you try out the process to set up an ad, you'll notice that, as an advertiser, you never receive anyone's personal information. That seems in keeping with the points above.
- david 16y ago
  Actually, they are known for making it pretty hard on advertisers. They're rules for what ads are acceptable are pretty strict, to the point where showing almost anything other than just a plain description of your product/service can be interpreted to break the rules. Most ads that you submit get rejected on sight, but if you post the same exacting thing at another type of day it gets through. Mainly their ad platform is surviving because the sheer volume of impressions they can serve is hard to ignore. Other than that, they damn sure aren't making it easy for advertisers to give them money.
robryan 16y ago
I guess they don't actually give advertisers your information, the way the point is written. Advertisers target and they match to people in the target, as good as giving information, just not that way it's worded.
petercooper 16y ago
Last number I saw was that Facebook makes ~$75m a year from selling "virtual gifts" alone.

crystalis 16y ago

Beacon, too.

papachito 16y ago

> This is why Queerty and Pandora silently installed applications on my profile There is no way for an app to install on your profile without your permission, it's just not in the API and I see no reason why Facebook would give them access to a secret API. Are you sure you didn't sign in to Pandora with your Facebook account? This is a pretty serious accusation. I'm no facebook fan but we need to be honest in our criticism if we want to be credible.

char 16y ago
From what I understand, what you say is true. When you go to Pandora, a bar pops up, on which you have the option to click 'No, Thanks'. If you click it, they won't have access to any of your Facebook information.
- sp332 16y ago
  The Instant Personalization is opt-out, not opt-in. App admins are supposed to delete you data when you opt-out, otherwise they have access.
Derrek 16y ago
I bought tickets on Fandango and later found the Fandango App in my FB profile. I never installed it or approved it--it just appeared. To me, that's simply wrong.
- nano81 16y ago
  "Facebook spokesperson David Swain contacted us and confirmed that the appearance of unauthorized apps was a bug: In this case, there was a bug that was showing applications on a user’s Application Settings page that the user hadn’t authorized. No information was shared with those applications and the user’s list of applications was not shown to anyone but the user. This bug has been fixed. It does appear that unauthorized apps are no longer being added to users' pages, however any unwanted applications that were previously added will still need to be removed manually." http://www.macworld.com/article/151087/2010/05/facebook_addingapps.html http://www.macworld.com/article/151087/2010/05/facebook_addi...

ajg1977 16y ago

"We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want." Apart from all the personal information that Facebook doesn't allow you to hide from non-friends, non-Facebook members, and search engines.

jjs 16y ago
It appears that you can fix that now in the privacy settings. That said, I still consider the initial "outing" of fan pages to be a huge breach of trust.
- jarek 16y ago
  I consider my 200 x 160 px profile picture personal information, or at least I would had I not purposefully uploaded a picture in which you can't see a thing at that size. Can't hide that. Then there's the "This information, such as your Pages and list of friends, is still public, so it could appear elsewhere on the site and be accessed by applications you and your friends use" note on top of the Friends, Tags and Connections privacy page, which doesn't seem to be true at the moment, but which is very unnerving nonetheless. I consider my friend list on Facebook to be personal information.