Are Facebook Applications Trust Worthy?

March 9, 2009 3:16 PM

Are applications on Facebook safe or should I worry about sharing my profile information with every application out there?

I have been using Facebook for sometime and have all sorts of requests from friends which use those silly applications like Mafia Wars, Good Karma, Kidnap and others.

When you except these requests you usually have to agree to let that application share your profile information.

Am I paranoid or is this a OK thing to do?

posted by randomthoughts to technology (8 comments total)

I would generally operate under the assumption that companies who develop stupid applications for Facebook are going to be sleazier than Facebook: Pieces of Flair is the Web 2.0 incarnation of Bonzi Buddy.

As well, the people who invite me to silly applications like Mafia Wars or Ninjas vs Pirates and so on are... annoying. Facebook friends who invite me to apps like those don't stay my facebook friends- it's like I'm being sent spam, except that it's acquaintances who are doing it.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:33 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I don't authorize any apps that want access to information that I would consider confidential. You can block app invitations on a per-app basis, and you can block individuals from sending you any app invitations at all. I started doing this aggressively and it has really improved my Facebook experience.
posted by indyz at 3:49 PM on March 9

Rogue Application Exploited Facebook’s TOS to Target its Users
Facebook shrugs off warning to vet potentially malicious programs

(Many more examples can be found by Googling malicious Facebook applications or similar terms.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:03 PM on March 9

Any app invitation gets a block from me. The first time I get an app invitation from a friend I will block the app. The second time, I block the friend from sending me further app invitations. I don't trust these apps as far as I can throw them.
posted by grouse at 4:04 PM on March 9

I have at least two Facebook applications that steal bandwidth from me by directly linking to images hosted on my webspace. People who code like this aren't exactly tidy or to be trusted.

I've been letting it slide, but one day that cute little picture of a dragon might become... something else.
posted by Addlepated at 4:30 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Hmm. If I block a friend from sending me another application invitation, and they try to in the future, do they get an error message or does it just silently fail without their knowledge?
posted by lizzicide at 7:54 PM on March 9

You should know that unless you specifically turn it off, applications your friends install have access to all of your data that those friends can see even if you do not install them. This is one of the nastiest pieces of default privacy settings about facebook in my opinion, so if you don't want apps seeing all of your data you should not only not install any apps, but block the ability for apps installed by your friends to grab your info. Check your application privacy settings for more details.
Now, technically they are not allowed to store that info for more than 24 hours but I still think it sucks and it's only as good as facebook's ability to catch violators and enforce the rules.
posted by ch1x0r at 8:22 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

When you see the "This application would like access to:" that is what they have access to. They can do anything at all whatsoever with that information. A vast percentage don't do anything nefarious. But it is possible they can sell your kidneys to Nigerian scammers, and when they do Facebook will usually remove them.

Mafia Wars and some of the others are well established, and therefore well vetted applications that have beeen around for a while and have a huge user base. In general these will be safer. If you get an invitation to share all your information for some application you don't know, and only has a couple hundred users, beware.

But, as with most things on the internet and in the physical world, to be perfectly safe, decline. But what fun would that be?
posted by Ookseer at 12:16 AM on March 10