If You Use Facebook

Cidu Bill on Jul 14th 2009

Everybody with a Facebook account should buy the August issue of PC World, for an article about how the the companies that create Facebook aps, and advertise those ubiquitous “Which Disney character are you?” and “How long will you live?” quizzes, mine and use information about you. It’s worse than you think. It’s even worse than I thought, and my paranoia about these things is no secret.

There’s also an article about adjusting various Facebook and Twitter privacy settings.

The articles don’t seem to be online, by the way, though it’s possible they’ll be added to the archives in the future.

Filed in Bill Bickel, Facebook, Twitter | 23 responses so far

23 Responses to “If You Use Facebook”

  1. Patrick Jul 14th 2009 at 02:36 pm 1

    But what kind of useful info are they garnering? Those quizzes are so poorly written and constructed that the answers are essentially meaningless — unless you mean that my email address and personal info is attached to my answer somehow. Even then, I still don’t think I get how all this stuff works. Apart from my social security number (which I hope they aren’t sharing - and I don’t think they have in the first place), what harm am I done by people knowing my address, phone number, etc.

    (I am not being cynical about it. I am legitimately asking: what harm can they do with the info they gather? I’d be happy to be more careful or paranoid if I knew why I should be.)

  2. Jeff S. Jul 14th 2009 at 02:46 pm 2

    With the information typically given on Facebook and MySpace, hackers can gain enough information about you to guess at your passwords to your bank account, credit card companies, etc. You blog about your little dog you had growing up. your kids on the honor roll, or where you grew up and went to school. Thieves can use that Pets’ names, kids’ names, parent’s middle names, and school names are the most common safety questions. They don’t really need your SSN to access your information, provided they can figure out your security answers. Once they get the answer, they have access to your information, and you are sunk.
    That is one reason I will NEVER have a Facebook or MySpace account. And I see no advantage to Tweeting.

  3. Marshal Jul 14th 2009 at 03:06 pm 3

    Those questions if answered honestly may be more informative than
    you think. I’ve recently had to take a couple of employment tests and
    the questions were structured pretty much the same. Basically
    psychological tests.

    .

  4. Patrick Jul 14th 2009 at 03:13 pm 4

    Marshal,
    No answer to a multiple choice question is informative if the choices aren’t mutually exclusive. Let’s say, for an absurd example, that you own one pet: a hamster. How do you truthfully answer this question: “What kind of pet do you own: A) Dog. B) Cat. C) Fish.

    Now, not only is there no “Hamster” choice. There is no “other” or “I don’t own a pet” choice either. But to continue the quiz, you have to click on SOMETHING. Questions like this (only with spelling and grammar errors to boot) are all over those idiotic Facebook quizzes.

    I know times are tough and it’s hard to pass up any job opportunity, but if a potential employer gives you a quiz like that, you should just walk out of the building.

  5. Kevin Jul 14th 2009 at 04:46 pm 5

    It’s not about the answers to the quizzes it is about information contained in your profile. When you use an application and click on that “allow” button you are giving that application access to whatever information in your profile you haven’t specifically disallowed in the application privacy settings. The most you have to share to use applications is your name, network and list of friends. You can restrict all other information from being shared.

  6. Suzanne Jul 14th 2009 at 05:12 pm 6

    I have always wondered what information these “apps” were mining and never allowed any apps whatsoever for the longest time. Thanks Kevin for explaining it.
    I am actually more concerned about the time-wasting aspect. I have found Facebook to be an amazing way to reconnect with, and stay connected to, important people from throughout my life. Yet the quizzes and apps and endless timewasting crap seems to have come from some enemy of the American people and our productivity and real knowledge. I need to read this article…but the internet has spoiled me… LOL

  7. Suzanne Jul 14th 2009 at 05:15 pm 7

    Bill- I just re-read your post. “Everybody with a Facebook account should buy” this magazine… sort of made me chuckle…surely there can’t be enough copies to go around. I think I actually will buy it. It will be like Hannah Montana tickets.

  8. Tom Jul 14th 2009 at 05:16 pm 8

    The article:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/164527/the_hidden_secrets_of_online_quizzes.html

  9. Kevin Andresen Jul 14th 2009 at 05:17 pm 9

    One quiz scam (the kind that gets you to inadvertently sign up for either calls or a $9.99/month cell-phone charged service by giving a tel. no. for correlation) includes pictures of the recipient’s actual friends, so the challenge feels like just another hug-like app. (There *is* fine print elsewhere on the page.)

  10. Kevin Andresen Jul 14th 2009 at 05:23 pm 10

    ooo. The PC World article says a $7 charge was not mentioned on the ask-for-results page. Even the not-completely-naïve might have trouble with that, yes?

  11. Keera Jul 14th 2009 at 05:36 pm 11

    I go nuts with all the crap my friends think is cute or fun or whatever, and found that the only way I could get anything useful out of Facebook was to stop accepting any and all apps (joined a Facebook group for it, too). I also don’t publish photos on Facebook except for ones I don’t care if they steal^H^H^H^H^H say are the property of Facebook.

  12. CIDU Bill Jul 14th 2009 at 05:48 pm 12

    Never fear, Suzanne, I said “Everybody with a Facebook acocunt should,” not “Everyone with a Facebook account will.”

    And Tom, thanks for finding it online. I looked but just didn’t see it. I choose to believe they only put it online an hout ago.

  13. Suzanne Jul 14th 2009 at 10:10 pm 13

    Oh the cell phone thing!! I tried putting in fake digits (the best part is that it’s a friggin IQ quiz!!) and it wouldn’t take…it had to verify your number to get your result? Or text you or something? My (otherwise very intelligent) friend fell for it and got all kinds of false charges on her cellophone account.

  14. Suzanne Jul 14th 2009 at 10:11 pm 14

    @CIDU Bill-
    and to think, I had totally justified actually buying the actual paper mag (and I am cheap LOL) to support the author, if the article was that good!

  15. Sari Everna Jul 15th 2009 at 12:49 am 15

    I think this is the better article for Facebook-specific worries:
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/167060/avoid_facebook_disasters.html

    There’s a link near the beginning to the companion article for similar Twitter concerns, too. The link that’s been posted is more generically for quizzes, on or off Facebook.

  16. Me Jul 15th 2009 at 03:40 am 16

    Considering how the article talked more about online quizzes in general (which, most people who take them seem to be naive, and are the type who are likely to get phished as well) rather than Facebook applications specifically, I don’t find the title of this post appropriate.

    Of course, the possible threat that the author does note is that the developer gets full access to your Facebook profile still exists. However, in my experiences with quizzes, either the developers of those quizzes are extremely dumb, or Facebook says they have more power than they actually do:
    -”Quizzes” that tell you what your name means need to ask you for your name instead of just drawing it with their “full access.”
    -”Quizzes” that are supposed to tell you something about your birth month usually will ask you for your birth month.

    By the way, what does this even have to do with comic strips?

  17. Mitch4 Jul 15th 2009 at 08:18 am 17

    Broadened to “online amusements” maybe?

  18. Nicole Jul 15th 2009 at 09:07 am 18

    Since the move away from a standard web page to a blog format, what kind of items get posted to this site has shifted away from the comics only format of the past. Still like Ivory soap it is 99.9% pure

  19. Nicole Jul 15th 2009 at 09:10 am 19

    Hasn’t anyone else noticed that the ads on the right side of the facebook page seem totally tailored to you? Regretably I recently changed my status from ‘in a commited relationship’ to ’single’ and lo and behold … many ads for dating sites. Clearly Facebook and others are watching

  20. S.P. Charles Jul 15th 2009 at 12:09 pm 20

    “Me,” you’re new here, aintcha?

  21. Frosted Donut Jul 15th 2009 at 12:31 pm 21

    @Nicole: Ivory soap is only 99 44/100% pure (99.44%).

    I always wondered what was in that other 0.56%….

  22. Nicole Jul 15th 2009 at 01:05 pm 22

    Frosted … right you are :-) Ask and you shall receive … The Original Ivory Bar is made of both vegetable oils and animal fats. Two different kinds of vegetable oils are used in Ivory - coconut oil and palm kernel oil. We add a preservative (magnesium sulfate and sodium silicate) to keep the bar as white as its name.

    This from the Ivory web site — clearly magnesium sulfate and sodium silicate are the contaminents

  23. Jeff S. Jul 20th 2009 at 11:28 am 23

    @ Frosted Donut - Don’t believe propaganda copied here by Nicole! That last 0.56% is pure too… PURE EVIL!

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