{"id":101718,"date":"2009-12-17T09:34:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-17T14:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5587346.post-8372169702698397676"},"modified":"2009-12-17T19:35:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T00:35:21","slug":"responding-to-facebook%e2%80%99s-lions-stop-friends-using-the-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/101718","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Facebook\u2019s lions: Stop friends using the apps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook has made changes to their privacy settings<\/a> that have two major consequences. The first is that the default settings now share much more information. The second is that users can no longer protect their social network from Facebook\u2019s \u201cApplications\u201d.<\/p>\n

Most of the media attention has been on how information is exposed to search engines such as Bing and Google. This is important, but there are complex workarounds<\/a>. It\u2019s not the most interesting or important consequence anyway.<\/p>\n

The more important consequence is that Facebook\u2019s shady App vendors (see: Scamville Furor<\/a>, Facebook and the eBay disease<\/a>) can no longer be blocked from accessing a player\u2019s social network. So every App vendor has access to all player \u201cfriends\u201d and all of the information they in turn make available in their public profiles. Remember that most of those public profiles now contain a great deal of personal data.<\/p>\n

The Facebook Apps are \u201cfree\u201d, but these vendors are not charities. They earn money by selling game goods, marketing extra-game services and products (some fraudulent), and by selling information. They will sell the social network information they harvest. They will also use that social network to find new \u201cplayers\u201d (aka \u201cvictims\u201d).<\/p>\n

To understand this it helps to think of Facebook as the African plains. In this metaphor Facebook users are rhinos and zebras and Facebook App vendors are lions.<\/p>\n

Both rhinos and zebras graze on Facebook grass (photo sharing, social stories, contact information). They get along. So how are they different?<\/p>\n

The rhinos don\u2019t do Apps and they restrict access to their personal information. They\u2019re tough and nasty; they don\u2019t directly feed lions. The zebras, however, do Apps, and they travel in herds. They\u2019re sleek, soft and vulnerable. Find one, you can find more. Lions eat zebras.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s messy for the zebras, but that\u2019s how the market works. The Facebook ecosystem is a rich feeding ground, and lions have to eat.<\/p>\n

Of course the Facebook ecosystem is more complex. Facebook rhinos and zebras are often friends and family. Even though lions don\u2019t eat rhinos, FB lions find rhinos through their zebra friends. They then sell Rhino locations (information) to big game hunters (banks<\/a>?) who sell Rhino horns for fertility potions (risk profiles).<\/p>\n

The market world is different because rhinos and zebras can fight back. Not every vendor scores a 10 on Gordon\u2019s scale of corporate evil<\/a>; Google\u2019s a mere 3 at the moment. There\u2019s more than one way to make money \u2013 though the alternatives may mean a smaller IPO. On the other hand, Facebook\u2019s current strategy runs the risk that IPO buyers will remember eBay.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear that there\u2019s anything to be done about Facebook. The corporate culture there is probably too much like 1990s Microsoft or 2010 Goldman Sachs for them to find another road. I\u2019ve stopped encouraging my friends to join up with Facebook.<\/p>\n

If you want to continue grazing Facebook\u2019s grasslands however, and you don\u2019t want to be lion fodder, there\u2019s now only one possible response.<\/p>\n

Convert your zebra friends to rhinos. Get them to stop using Apps. If they persist in using Apps, unfriend them. They\u2019re leading the lions to you.<\/p>\n

As of today, Facebook apps are the enemy.<\/p>\n

Update<\/b>: Great comment from Nettie. She refers us to Brad Stone’s announcement of the EFF’s complaint to the FTC<\/a> – cosigned by ten other privacy organizations …<\/p>\n

… Ten other privacy organizations signed the complaint, including the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the American Library Association and the Consumer Federation of America. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada has also been looking into Facebook\u2019s privacy guidelines…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think it’s fair to say that the fan has been hit. Like Nettie, I’ve noticed people drifting away from FB …<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook has made changes to their privacy settings that have two major consequences. The first is that the default settings now share much more information. The second is that users can no longer protect their social network from Facebook\u2019s \u201cApplications\u201d. Most of the media attention has been on how information is exposed to search engines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":711,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/711"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}