Facebook is in More Hot Water

Glad I am not Mark Zuckerberg,

Well, maybe.  I think I would like to have his bank account 🙂

Facebook is making some efforts to rehabilitate it’s image within the fundamental constraint that it is selling your data for a living.  While pretending that it is all for your benefit.

As part of this rehab effort, Facebook is reviewing tens of thousands (or more) of apps to find ones that are misusing data.

So far, they have “suspended” about 200 apps.

One app, myPersonality, has likely misused large amounts of data on millions of users over the last 3-4 years.  It, too, is now suspended.

To quote someone (there is a debate as to who) :  With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.

This may be a defining moment for Facebook.

So what should you do?

The greatest power is the power wielded by the Internet user.  Facebook can only collect information that you provide it. Same for Google.  Sometimes the information is provided willingly.  Other times it is much less obvious, like when Google collects information about what web pages you visit and for how long.

Hopefully, for most people, it is becoming painfully obvious that YOU are the product.

So be careful about what apps you install, what data you provide and to whom.  Or not.  But, if not, understand the implications.  

One thing you should assume.  If you provide information to an app or a public web site, it could become public.   If that is a problem, don’t provide the information.

Information for this post came from The Register.

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