Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Facebook Privacy: Where Is It?

I'm new to Facebook. I didn't like it before and I still don't like it. One of the reasons that I dislike it is its weird, absurd and abusive privacy laws.

I have no apps or games lurking in my profile. I'm part of 2 groups so far. The other day I wanted to join a fan-page, and I was shocked at the message that showed up:


I simply clicked a poll asking which Operating System I use. It asked me the following:
"Allowing Poll access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work.
Allow or cancel"

I find it very hard to understand why a poll application needs to pull my profile along my friends'! It's a stinky poll! All it could require is my name and whatever public information I've opted to share.

The fact that Facebook defaults to leaving every privacy option set to Public isn't enough deter people apparently.

I should note that even when you leave the fan-page, game or application, your information is still retained by the maintainers of that application. It is not deleted!

I haven't joined any games, and will not, because of such absurd privacy violations. Maybe if people paid enough attention, Facebook would actually do something about it. Hopefully. One day. Eventually?