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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"

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"