9 ms·

Facebook Now Shares Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

184 points by rwwmike 16y ago

ssclafani 16y ago
Less sensational headline: Facebook Now Allows You to Share Your Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps
- yellowbkpk 16y ago
  Right, but the point RWW was trying to make is that the dialog doesn't exactly scream "we're sharing your phone number!" It looks very similar to any other dialog 90% of the Internet might click through without so much as a glance.
  - nhangen 16y ago
    Exactly, and what I really don't like about this is not that they are doing it, but they won't share it with their users unless the tech world makes a big deal out of it, which they will. So they announce it on the dev blog, but not the public blog, which I think is poor form at a minimum. I looked through my profile info and I didn't see a way to hide my phone or address from applications, which means that I have to choose to not post them on Facebook, or provide access any time I want to use an app that requests them. Obviously, this is much more useful to developers than it is users.
- ajg1977 16y ago
  Not really. That implies Facebook are offering a way to push your phone number and data into third party apps. What they are infact doing is now allowing third-parties to request extra, and very very personal, information about you using the same dialog that people have effectively now been trained to basically click-through. I really think this dialog needs two things: 1) Something that highlights the fact you are allowing third-parties access beyond your basic profile. All personal information is not equal. 2) A way for the user to opt out of sharing this extra information. As a result, the app may have to deny you access if it really really does need your address (why it would is hard to imagine), but this "all or nothing" approach seems wrong to me.
  - fuzzmeister 16y ago
    1) The fact that there is a second item below "Access my basic information" would seem to make that fact abundantly clear. I'm not sure how much more explicit it can get. 2) While I agree that it would be good to give users a greater level of control, most apps are unfortunately not designed to play nicely with varying levels of permissions. Such a change would require significant advance notice to Platform developers.
    - extension 16y ago
      While I agree that it would be good to give users a greater level of control, most apps are unfortunately not designed to play nicely with varying levels of permissions. Such a change would require significant advance notice to Platform developers. They can obviously live without contact info since they haven't had access to it until now. This is actually an interesting potential solution to the permission dialog problem: force apps to handle certain permissions in a granular way. Always let the user deny those permissions independently. Then the app can be forced to make a specific case for why it needs each of those permissions.
      - natrius 16y ago
        > "They can obviously live without contact info since they haven't had access to it until now." This is such an illogical statement that I'm not quite sure how to respond to it.
        extension 16y ago
        Huh? How can an app depend on access it has never had? Has the app always been broken waiting for this feature?
        natrius 16y ago
        There are two orthogonal issues here: allowing apps to access contact information at all, and allowing users to select which of the requested permissions to grant. In retrospect, I glossed over the quoted portion of your comment and your proposed solution, so I assumed you were referring solely to the former. My apologies.
- yason 16y ago
  The next thing to do would be to wait for them to swap the defaults and make it so that you have to specifically opt-out of the scheme, or have your contact information casually shared with a set of third parties. Then we could scream for privacy and spread instructions on how to disable that using this week's user interface to the privacy settings.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Yes, this is exactly the danger here and something Facebook has done to its users several times already.
- snissn 16y ago
  >implies content actually isn't worth sensationalizing
- nhangen 16y ago
  If this is true, then why was it announced to developers and not users?
  - jschuur 16y ago
    It's announced to users where it matters: when they are asked for permission to share their data.
    - nhangen 16y ago
      Ok, so tell me - 1. Does this apply to current developer/client connections? 2. Will the connection request specify that you are giving consent to address & phone #? 3. Will you be given the option to specify which data you give to applications or will it continue to be all or nothing? I'm not a user advocate, but I can tell you this - I'm tired of FB constantly glossing over the details.
  - nhangen 16y ago
    Just want to add that the parent, which I've been downvoted for, was in response to this, and not the OP: "Less sensational headline: Facebook Now Allows You to Share Your Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps"
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
beoba 16y ago
Where's the option to choose which items get sent? Looks like all or nothing.
- chapel 16y ago
  I have been wondering that for a while; why isn't there a conditional permissions system that you can choose what gets shared or not. It wouldn't be that hard for app developers to sanity check for what is available or not, and tell the user if it is an issue. The all of nothing mentality is flawed, much like most of Facebook's decisions it seems. (imo)
  - JanezStupar 16y ago
    It is not flawed by any means - from Facebook POV.
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  The app has to warn you as to what is getting sent; you then get to decide if you want the app or not. In other words, it's not really "all or nothing" as much as "whatever this particular app asks for, or pass on this app."
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    Exactly. Give this app "all" of the information it is requesting or give "nothing." People want more granular control.
    - jwatzman 16y ago
      People who read HN, myself included, want more granular control, sure. I don't think most of Facebook's users would care or understand about the granular control -- I think a simple yes/no like Facebook has right now is probably the best option for most users.
      - stanleydrew 16y ago
motters 16y ago
I seem to remember that not so long ago it was standard advice not to give out your address or phone number to people you don't know on the internet.
- WillyF 16y ago
  Most people also didn't use their real name online. Facebook played a huge role in changing that.
- nhangen 16y ago
  With privacy settings set properly, you aren't doing that at all. You're sharing your address and phone # with your friends. From what I can gather, this bypasses those settings.
FirstHopSystems 16y ago
With a multi-billion dollar valuation, I'm sure that the majority of Facebook's value is in all information it gathers about you. Is this any surprise to anyone? One way or another Facebook is trying to monetize your info. Maybe it's just me but there always seem to be some kind of news fading away about Facebook privacy. I'm my theory that's why they are worth so much. Don't think they are going to stop doing this anytime soon. Opt-out..hahaha maybe opt-out of only the really obvious ways Facebook is selling your info.
beaumartinez 16y ago
ReadWriteWeb-sponsered submission? Check the URL, it has a tracking string (for want of a better word) with "hackernews".
- code_duck 16y ago
  If you look at the bio of the submitter, he writes for ReadWriteWeb and, I believe, wrote the article. Nothing wrong with that; people often submit their own work here.
  - rwwmike 16y ago
    You are correct. I write for ReadWriteWeb, wrote the article and I think that the URL has that code in it because I clicked on the Hacker News button on the article to share it. :)
    - beaumartinez 16y ago
      Perfectly good! I have no issue with it, I just thought it was worth pointing out as I had seen the same URL tweeted.
andysinclair 16y ago
But how many people have added their full address and phone number to their Facebook profiles anyway? I would bet that the majority of people have their city/town set and not their full address and won't have specified their phone number at all. However, this really could be quite useful if used legitimately, i.e. Facebook commerce, having shipping address available; location aware apps etc.
- estel 16y ago
  Anecdotally, something like 30% of my friends list (not particularly tech-savvy skewed) probably share their phone numbers. It's also one of the most useful features of the whole site, if I'm out somewhere and realise I suddenly need to call someone whose number I can grab from Facebook.
- jschuur 16y ago
  I use Facebook for my friends. Why wouldn't I add my real contact details? I'm not afraid of my friends.
- cd34 16y ago
  http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=phonebook http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=phonebook Very easy way to check which of your friends has published their phone number.
EGreg 16y ago
I've been developing Facebook Connect applications for a long time, and I'm wondering - hasn't facebook had this feature already for email addresses? One of the permissions read: "Send me email" (optional: send through a facebook proxy) So now, you can also let the apps know phone number through the graph? I don't find that too big of a step. CAN-SPAM still applies. Perhaps they should set up proxies for the phone number, though. What I find more funny is that ReadWriteWeb writes: "Thankfully, this sort of information cannot be shared via your friends' careless actions, unlike other profile information." which is in direct opposition to the attitude that blogs had on the same issue when Google complained that facebook was "trapping your contacts" by not letting you export them. Now they are thankful facebook doesn't do this :)
- gergles 16y ago
  Letting your friends export your information through a facebook feature is substantially different than letting any shady "Platform" app get it.
- rwwmike 16y ago
  Who owns your online identity is a completely different thing than letting this sort of contact information leak through the carelessness of your friends. Other profile information of yours, if you don't correct FB's settings, can be given to third-parties by way of your friend saying okay. That is, thankfully your friend can't decide they want to share there contact information with some app and vicariously share yours too. Big difference.
ChipsAndSalsa 16y ago
The idea of allowing users to control what individual permissions they have is good in theory, very hard in practice. It faces two main challenges that I can think of: 1) There are UI issues that have been raised elsewhere in this thread - mainly, that users get confused when shown a set of complex options. Having watched usability studies where users are given a lot of relatively complex options, I'd suspect that a model where users have to pick among the permissions to give an app is going to fail massively (ie, user turns on everything without actually understanding anything, turns off everything by default or just cancels out of the app install altogether.) A model where apps request permissions right when it's needed will be annoying users with all the dialogs needed. 2) Some apps don't work if they don't get all the permissions they need (imagine an address book app for an email program - if you don't get email address it just doesn't work.) Adding a lot of conditionals to change how your app works based on what permissions they get can be expensive and adds a lot of unnecessary test cases. In my opinion, Facebook's decision give more granular permissions, but to make it an all or nothing proposition allows them to protect their users by removing spammy/malicious apps, and simplifies the applications built on their platform . This puts responsibility on them to actively remove malicious applications, and on developers to pick only the permissions they need. Given that users tend to make bad decisions given a set of complex options that they don't understand, it seems like they made a rational choice. AppStores on the various phone platforms have a similar decision to make as to how to best protect users from apps, and there isn't consensus as to the best model in that arena either. They do need to step up their activity to remove malicious apps in light of giving regular applications this option.
- nhangen 16y ago
  Just because it is difficult in practice does not make it any less important. That sounds like a Facebook problem more than a user problem.
- gergles 16y ago
  "Remove malicious apps" doesn't undo the damage they caused. A reactionary approach only works until the first gigantic breach occurs, at which point people will finally start to ask "why do I have to give ShittyGame every permission under the sun?" It's the same on Android. Why do I have to give any app that wants to display ads in my face permission to read my phone number and device serial number? Hell, on some carriers that's all you need to clone the phone and steal service from it. What possible reason could there be for that? It's poor design, and there's no reason I need to give "Bob's Fun Game" my telephone number just so it can have a unique ID to datamine later. Generate one on startup and use that. The problems are similar and the solutions are similar - line-item veto for permissions, period. If your app can't handle it, crash - I'd rather have a broken app than risk my privacy for it.
ghkyudfe 16y ago
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JasonPunyon 16y ago
Just in case anyone else is wondering... http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/1/how-do-i-delete-my-facebook-account http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/1/how-do-i-delete...
mobileed 16y ago
No, Facebook doesn't share this information - you do! Let's be clear here. Those who are dumb enough to put their PII data on Facebook and the alike are sharing their information. My God, can we stop blaming someone else for our stupidity?
- jarek 16y ago
  Facebook is in a weird middle spot between totally public and totally private. You log in, and you primarily interact with friends, but then a friend can allow an application to programmatically access your data... People have problems parsing the situation. Further, Facebook used to be much more private, and the constant adjustment of goalposts doesn't help.
tlack 16y ago
I wonder if Facebook developed this functionality to aide companies bringing their ecommerce efforts directly onto Facebook (as Amazon and hundreds of others are now doing).
joe_the_user 16y ago
As I recall, Facebook still won't let the app/script that I run myself save the email addresses of my friends that they choose to share with me (I can manually save each shared email-address of each friend of my hundred friends but the terms of service prohibit any bulk downloading of this information). So the assumption is that I, as a user, am naturally more willing to share my contact information with anonymous application X than I am with my friends. Naturally, this is indeed a transparent effort at lock-in.
celticjames 16y ago
You know who else shares my phone number and address? The phone book!
- Flenser 16y ago
  You know who else shares my phone number and address? The phone book! but the phone book doesn't call up the websites you visit to tell them that it's you that's visiting them. It's not about the specific information being available; it's about the context it's available in and what other information it could be connected to.
- jarek 16y ago
  And you can opt out of being in a phone book while continuing to use your phone. Not to mention phone books have been sliding down a steep slope of irrelevancy for the past 10 or 15 years as cell phones increased in popularity.
itsnotvalid 16y ago
So from now on, we need to remove two more items from our profile. Well, as long as we are not allowed to partially denie permission requests (which of course would make certain apps not able to share our information to other third parties)
samic 16y ago
there is always a problem with facebook! I can't trust them ever!
rwwmike 16y ago
Here's the follow-up story... http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_identity_the_continued_push_toward_becomi.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_identity_the_c...
shankx 16y ago
When somebody knocks at your door, peep through the peephole first. It might be some stalker who got your address from an app.
pasbesoin 16y ago
I commented on this already in another thread that I saw first. My apology for bending the rules, just this once, by posting the same comment a second time in this active thread to make the point: I'm sure my relative would appreciate her abusive ex getting his hands on her phone number. (And given past problems with third parties, I have to think this information -- speaking generally if not specifically -- is going to leak.) You use the cell phone number as part of password recovery / identity verification (as I understand it). And then you do this?

184 points by rwwmike 16y ago

ssclafani 16y ago

Less sensational headline: Facebook Now Allows You to Share Your Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps

yellowbkpk 16y ago
Right, but the point RWW was trying to make is that the dialog doesn't exactly scream "we're sharing your phone number!" It looks very similar to any other dialog 90% of the Internet might click through without so much as a glance.
- nhangen 16y ago
  Exactly, and what I really don't like about this is not that they are doing it, but they won't share it with their users unless the tech world makes a big deal out of it, which they will. So they announce it on the dev blog, but not the public blog, which I think is poor form at a minimum. I looked through my profile info and I didn't see a way to hide my phone or address from applications, which means that I have to choose to not post them on Facebook, or provide access any time I want to use an app that requests them. Obviously, this is much more useful to developers than it is users.
ajg1977 16y ago
Not really. That implies Facebook are offering a way to push your phone number and data into third party apps. What they are infact doing is now allowing third-parties to request extra, and very very personal, information about you using the same dialog that people have effectively now been trained to basically click-through. I really think this dialog needs two things: 1) Something that highlights the fact you are allowing third-parties access beyond your basic profile. All personal information is not equal. 2) A way for the user to opt out of sharing this extra information. As a result, the app may have to deny you access if it really really does need your address (why it would is hard to imagine), but this "all or nothing" approach seems wrong to me.
- fuzzmeister 16y ago
  1) The fact that there is a second item below "Access my basic information" would seem to make that fact abundantly clear. I'm not sure how much more explicit it can get. 2) While I agree that it would be good to give users a greater level of control, most apps are unfortunately not designed to play nicely with varying levels of permissions. Such a change would require significant advance notice to Platform developers.
  - extension 16y ago
    While I agree that it would be good to give users a greater level of control, most apps are unfortunately not designed to play nicely with varying levels of permissions. Such a change would require significant advance notice to Platform developers. They can obviously live without contact info since they haven't had access to it until now. This is actually an interesting potential solution to the permission dialog problem: force apps to handle certain permissions in a granular way. Always let the user deny those permissions independently. Then the app can be forced to make a specific case for why it needs each of those permissions.
    - natrius 16y ago
      > "They can obviously live without contact info since they haven't had access to it until now." This is such an illogical statement that I'm not quite sure how to respond to it.
      - extension 16y ago
        Huh? How can an app depend on access it has never had? Has the app always been broken waiting for this feature?
        natrius 16y ago
        There are two orthogonal issues here: allowing apps to access contact information at all, and allowing users to select which of the requested permissions to grant. In retrospect, I glossed over the quoted portion of your comment and your proposed solution, so I assumed you were referring solely to the former. My apologies.
yason 16y ago
The next thing to do would be to wait for them to swap the defaults and make it so that you have to specifically opt-out of the scheme, or have your contact information casually shared with a set of third parties. Then we could scream for privacy and spread instructions on how to disable that using this week's user interface to the privacy settings.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Yes, this is exactly the danger here and something Facebook has done to its users several times already.
snissn 16y ago
>implies content actually isn't worth sensationalizing
nhangen 16y ago
If this is true, then why was it announced to developers and not users?
- jschuur 16y ago
  It's announced to users where it matters: when they are asked for permission to share their data.
  - nhangen 16y ago
    Ok, so tell me - 1. Does this apply to current developer/client connections? 2. Will the connection request specify that you are giving consent to address & phone #? 3. Will you be given the option to specify which data you give to applications or will it continue to be all or nothing? I'm not a user advocate, but I can tell you this - I'm tired of FB constantly glossing over the details.
- nhangen 16y ago
  Just want to add that the parent, which I've been downvoted for, was in response to this, and not the OP: "Less sensational headline: Facebook Now Allows You to Share Your Phone Number & Address With Third-Party Apps"

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

beoba 16y ago

Where's the option to choose which items get sent? Looks like all or nothing.

chapel 16y ago
I have been wondering that for a while; why isn't there a conditional permissions system that you can choose what gets shared or not. It wouldn't be that hard for app developers to sanity check for what is available or not, and tell the user if it is an issue. The all of nothing mentality is flawed, much like most of Facebook's decisions it seems. (imo)
- JanezStupar 16y ago
  It is not flawed by any means - from Facebook POV.
michael_dorfman 16y ago
The app has to warn you as to what is getting sent; you then get to decide if you want the app or not. In other words, it's not really "all or nothing" as much as "whatever this particular app asks for, or pass on this app."
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  Exactly. Give this app "all" of the information it is requesting or give "nothing." People want more granular control.
  - jwatzman 16y ago
    People who read HN, myself included, want more granular control, sure. I don't think most of Facebook's users would care or understand about the granular control -- I think a simple yes/no like Facebook has right now is probably the best option for most users.
    - stanleydrew 16y ago

motters 16y ago

I seem to remember that not so long ago it was standard advice not to give out your address or phone number to people you don't know on the internet.

WillyF 16y ago
Most people also didn't use their real name online. Facebook played a huge role in changing that.
nhangen 16y ago
With privacy settings set properly, you aren't doing that at all. You're sharing your address and phone # with your friends. From what I can gather, this bypasses those settings.

FirstHopSystems 16y ago

With a multi-billion dollar valuation, I'm sure that the majority of Facebook's value is in all information it gathers about you. Is this any surprise to anyone? One way or another Facebook is trying to monetize your info. Maybe it's just me but there always seem to be some kind of news fading away about Facebook privacy. I'm my theory that's why they are worth so much. Don't think they are going to stop doing this anytime soon. Opt-out..hahaha maybe opt-out of only the really obvious ways Facebook is selling your info.

beaumartinez 16y ago

ReadWriteWeb-sponsered submission? Check the URL, it has a tracking string (for want of a better word) with "hackernews".

code_duck 16y ago
If you look at the bio of the submitter, he writes for ReadWriteWeb and, I believe, wrote the article. Nothing wrong with that; people often submit their own work here.
- rwwmike 16y ago
  You are correct. I write for ReadWriteWeb, wrote the article and I think that the URL has that code in it because I clicked on the Hacker News button on the article to share it. :)
  - beaumartinez 16y ago
    Perfectly good! I have no issue with it, I just thought it was worth pointing out as I had seen the same URL tweeted.

andysinclair 16y ago

But how many people have added their full address and phone number to their Facebook profiles anyway? I would bet that the majority of people have their city/town set and not their full address and won't have specified their phone number at all. However, this really could be quite useful if used legitimately, i.e. Facebook commerce, having shipping address available; location aware apps etc.

estel 16y ago
Anecdotally, something like 30% of my friends list (not particularly tech-savvy skewed) probably share their phone numbers. It's also one of the most useful features of the whole site, if I'm out somewhere and realise I suddenly need to call someone whose number I can grab from Facebook.
jschuur 16y ago
I use Facebook for my friends. Why wouldn't I add my real contact details? I'm not afraid of my friends.
cd34 16y ago
http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=phonebook http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=phonebook Very easy way to check which of your friends has published their phone number.

EGreg 16y ago

I've been developing Facebook Connect applications for a long time, and I'm wondering - hasn't facebook had this feature already for email addresses? One of the permissions read: "Send me email" (optional: send through a facebook proxy) So now, you can also let the apps know phone number through the graph? I don't find that too big of a step. CAN-SPAM still applies. Perhaps they should set up proxies for the phone number, though. What I find more funny is that ReadWriteWeb writes: "Thankfully, this sort of information cannot be shared via your friends' careless actions, unlike other profile information." which is in direct opposition to the attitude that blogs had on the same issue when Google complained that facebook was "trapping your contacts" by not letting you export them. Now they are thankful facebook doesn't do this :)

gergles 16y ago
Letting your friends export your information through a facebook feature is substantially different than letting any shady "Platform" app get it.
rwwmike 16y ago
Who owns your online identity is a completely different thing than letting this sort of contact information leak through the carelessness of your friends. Other profile information of yours, if you don't correct FB's settings, can be given to third-parties by way of your friend saying okay. That is, thankfully your friend can't decide they want to share there contact information with some app and vicariously share yours too. Big difference.

ChipsAndSalsa 16y ago

The idea of allowing users to control what individual permissions they have is good in theory, very hard in practice. It faces two main challenges that I can think of: 1) There are UI issues that have been raised elsewhere in this thread - mainly, that users get confused when shown a set of complex options. Having watched usability studies where users are given a lot of relatively complex options, I'd suspect that a model where users have to pick among the permissions to give an app is going to fail massively (ie, user turns on everything without actually understanding anything, turns off everything by default or just cancels out of the app install altogether.) A model where apps request permissions right when it's needed will be annoying users with all the dialogs needed. 2) Some apps don't work if they don't get all the permissions they need (imagine an address book app for an email program - if you don't get email address it just doesn't work.) Adding a lot of conditionals to change how your app works based on what permissions they get can be expensive and adds a lot of unnecessary test cases. In my opinion, Facebook's decision give more granular permissions, but to make it an all or nothing proposition allows them to protect their users by removing spammy/malicious apps, and simplifies the applications built on their platform . This puts responsibility on them to actively remove malicious applications, and on developers to pick only the permissions they need. Given that users tend to make bad decisions given a set of complex options that they don't understand, it seems like they made a rational choice. AppStores on the various phone platforms have a similar decision to make as to how to best protect users from apps, and there isn't consensus as to the best model in that arena either. They do need to step up their activity to remove malicious apps in light of giving regular applications this option.

nhangen 16y ago
Just because it is difficult in practice does not make it any less important. That sounds like a Facebook problem more than a user problem.
gergles 16y ago
"Remove malicious apps" doesn't undo the damage they caused. A reactionary approach only works until the first gigantic breach occurs, at which point people will finally start to ask "why do I have to give ShittyGame every permission under the sun?" It's the same on Android. Why do I have to give any app that wants to display ads in my face permission to read my phone number and device serial number? Hell, on some carriers that's all you need to clone the phone and steal service from it. What possible reason could there be for that? It's poor design, and there's no reason I need to give "Bob's Fun Game" my telephone number just so it can have a unique ID to datamine later. Generate one on startup and use that. The problems are similar and the solutions are similar - line-item veto for permissions, period. If your app can't handle it, crash - I'd rather have a broken app than risk my privacy for it.

ghkyudfe 16y ago

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JasonPunyon 16y ago

Just in case anyone else is wondering... http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/1/how-do-i-delete-my-facebook-account http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/1/how-do-i-delete...

mobileed 16y ago

No, Facebook doesn't share this information - you do! Let's be clear here. Those who are dumb enough to put their PII data on Facebook and the alike are sharing their information. My God, can we stop blaming someone else for our stupidity?

jarek 16y ago
Facebook is in a weird middle spot between totally public and totally private. You log in, and you primarily interact with friends, but then a friend can allow an application to programmatically access your data... People have problems parsing the situation. Further, Facebook used to be much more private, and the constant adjustment of goalposts doesn't help.

tlack 16y ago

I wonder if Facebook developed this functionality to aide companies bringing their ecommerce efforts directly onto Facebook (as Amazon and hundreds of others are now doing).

joe_the_user 16y ago

As I recall, Facebook still won't let the app/script that I run myself save the email addresses of my friends that they choose to share with me (I can manually save each shared email-address of each friend of my hundred friends but the terms of service prohibit any bulk downloading of this information). So the assumption is that I, as a user, am naturally more willing to share my contact information with anonymous application X than I am with my friends. Naturally, this is indeed a transparent effort at lock-in.

celticjames 16y ago

You know who else shares my phone number and address? The phone book!

Flenser 16y ago
You know who else shares my phone number and address? The phone book! but the phone book doesn't call up the websites you visit to tell them that it's you that's visiting them. It's not about the specific information being available; it's about the context it's available in and what other information it could be connected to.
jarek 16y ago
And you can opt out of being in a phone book while continuing to use your phone. Not to mention phone books have been sliding down a steep slope of irrelevancy for the past 10 or 15 years as cell phones increased in popularity.

itsnotvalid 16y ago

So from now on, we need to remove two more items from our profile. Well, as long as we are not allowed to partially denie permission requests (which of course would make certain apps not able to share our information to other third parties)

samic 16y ago

there is always a problem with facebook! I can't trust them ever!

rwwmike 16y ago

Here's the follow-up story... http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_identity_the_continued_push_toward_becomi.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_identity_the_c...

shankx 16y ago

When somebody knocks at your door, peep through the peephole first. It might be some stalker who got your address from an app.

pasbesoin 16y ago

I commented on this already in another thread that I saw first. My apology for bending the rules, just this once, by posting the same comment a second time in this active thread to make the point: I'm sure my relative would appreciate her abusive ex getting his hands on her phone number. (And given past problems with third parties, I have to think this information -- speaking generally if not specifically -- is going to leak.) You use the cell phone number as part of password recovery / identity verification (as I understand it). And then you do this?