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Let’s take a break from the Mobile World Congress madness and talk about security. This is a huge issue in the smartphone market, as our devices hold all of our personal information. But we might be a little careless at times, and give developers too many rights. Today’s security issues revolve around Facebook, who is being accused of reading users’ text messages.
We already know that Facebook is not exactly the most careful about your private information. But London’s Sunday Times is reporting that Facebook has gone as far as to read user’s text messages. Of course, not as a hobby, though. The “sources” claim that this was done for testing purposes, while on the process of launching its own messaging service.
Regardless, it seems a bit weird to imagine that these guys have access to such information. We have given Facebook such privilege, though, just as we have for everything else they are blamed for. If you want to keep all of your information completely secure, those long pages of terms and conditions should start becoming more appealing.
We are not quite sure who these sources are, and how much credibility they hold. Let’s stay calm and wait to see if we can learn more about this, or if Facebook has anything to say about the matter. For now, refrain from sending all them mischievous messages!
[Source: Sunday Times Via: Gizmodo]
no longer user fb app. just web mobile site. thanks very much. this is the situation where mobile web apps will be more appealing than native apps.
The mobile app sucks anyway, I haven’t used it in fo-eva.
They keep this stuff up and it will be instantly uninstalled from my phone. Google+ is better anyway.
with CM7 you can block certain privileges, may have a look
I’ve suspected FB may have been doing this for a while now. A few months back, I texted a friend about an author I had just read a book by, saying she should check him out. A few days later, she told me that she got an ad on Facebook about that very author, who she had never heard of before. We both have Android phones, and I checked and saw that the FB app has permission to read SMS messages. I wouldn’t call such an incident conclusive proof, as it could have just been a coincidence, but it certainly made me very suspicious.
they could also be tracking her pc movements so when she looked at the author on google/amazon it could have gotten the information from there. Especially if she tied her amazon account with facebook.
I’d be on Google+ by now, but everyone at school is still on Facebook. Why that is is beyond me.
Uninstalled. I prefer the mobile site anyway. I can copy and paste from there.
FriendCaster FTW!
I think I may be one of the rare people who have read facebook’s terms and conditions, and after doing so I uninstalled facebook from my phone and stopped using facebook. The ONLY time I log back into facebook is when someone is having a tempting contest that requires facebook to enter.
I don’t like the way facebook intrudes on your privacy and tracks users with cookies even when you aren’t logged into your account. Why should they have that kind of privilege? No thanks.
If you are worried about privacy you wouldn’t be using Facebook to begin with…
yup just deleted the app off my phone after clearing cache and data, preciate the heads up
No longer a Facebook user. It’s become a cesspool of people posting how far along their pregnancy is, poor grammar & game requests. Most of these people aren’t using Google+, but that’s what circles are for. I really don’t care about what you’re having for dinner.
I’ve never even been to the Facebook site, except as the result of a Google search. But what bothers me about this is that Facebook comes pre-installed on some phones, making it impossible for the average user to remove.
It’s one of so many nice features in CyanogenMod to be able to limit any given Apps rights.
if you read the facebook permissions before installing it you should know it read almost everything from your phone….
I barely use my facebook account anymore especially since G+, but now I finally had a good reason to remove the app.
What is the story with tracking? I read the title and believed it to contain other information regarding the following and recording locations, Yes No?
Faceboo (Not a typo) was uninstalled from my phone months ago, its sucks. I only log into my FB account once a month, and that will only be happening until i get as many people as i can moved over to G+. Scr–ew Suckerberg!
That’s fk’d up!
I’m rarely elitist or exclusive, but there has been (or maybe was, as it grows) a really nice flow to it for me since I got there,and part of it is the quiet I think.
Back on IRC, sometimes the best discussions often happened in the presence of the fewest people. Clearly that’s a statement that doesn’t present a rule of thumb, but it got me ‘keyed in’ to the notion of appropriate audience in terms of developing communication between people.
The lack of businesses, ubiquitous mis-use of the idea of what’s ‘shared’, and the cleaner edges around social ripples have made it just more appealing to me than Facebook.
Privacy, though….
I <3 Google, man….but one devil for another here in Social Networking land. They want your data too. The enemy of my enemy? I guess it's not necessary backed by fact, but I get the inkling Google folks want to make products, and then monetize them to realize stability. They also don't want to get all up in my e-mail – personally.
I feel like Facebook's internal culture is quite the opposite. Grow the income stream by developing products that enhance it, then work the leveraging necessary into features that may appeal to a user or seem innocuous in their presence.
Very recently though my confidence in this take on their MO has eroded as Google continues to rub elbows with Big Shady Government instead of Big Greedy Business.