Do Facebook Application Developers Know Too Much?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg sent application developers into cheers last April, during Facebook's annual "f8" conference. The big news was that Facebook was removing all restrictions on the amount of data about a user an application can save. Previously, Facebook applications couldn't store and cache data for more than 24 hours. While developers and marketing companies burst into cheers of happiness, should you, the user support this change? As far a user experience goes, yes, you should. However, privacy and safety wise, definitely not.

Before this change, apps had to constantly retrieve data from Facebook servers, which resulted in drastically slower loading times. Now that that all the data that apps need is already there, the end user receives an overall better experience. While your apps may load faster, most users overlook the fact that applications are accessing your personal data. ACLU has put together a campaign to raise awareness of the privacy concerns surrounding Facebook applications. Regardless of your privacy settings on Facebook, once you click the "allow" button on an applications, you give it permission to access all of your personal information. ACLU also release a shocking article mentioning that your private data is also revealed when one of your friends takes a quiz.

The "Which Spongebob Character Are You" quiz may not seem suspicious to the user, but deep behind the "allow" button, you are giving out information you would normally keep confidential. Applications are made for profit. How to developers make profit? Your information. Think twice before taking that quiz your friend sent you that message about.

Want to know more? Take ACLU's Facebook privacy quiz. (Not to mention, this quiz is a Facebook application...)