Facebook is NOT selling user Info!!
Posted by Ryan on September 18th, 2006.
Facebook has recently announced the Facebook Development Platform (their blog entry can be viewed at http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2207512130 )
Several People are now posting notes similar to the one below:
Facebook has begun selling user information (surprise, surprise!). They call it the “Facebook Development Platform.” To restrict use of your information, do the following:
Click “My Privacy” on the left.
Click “Edit Settings” under the “Everyone” section.
Scroll down to the bottom and uncheck “My information may be used according to the restricted Terms of Service.”(Do your friends a favor and repost this as your own note.)
Facebook is NOT selling information. It is simply creating a new, safe, and easy way for people to use facebook. All the user information will be remaining safe and secure on Facebook’s servers.
So what is the thought behind this? Developers and facebook users themselves will be able to develop software and websites that require facebook users to sign in before having access to somethings. For example, the guy’s whose girlfriend would have a threesome if he was able to make a group that reached 100,000 members used this new feature to create a page on his website where facebook members (and only facebook members) could vote on who the other girl would be.
What can this platform lead to? Well, if someone had the time and the knowledge (and felt like doing it), they could make a desktop facebook client. That way, you could always have information about your friends on your computer, and could have it connect to facebook’s servers when you wanted to update it.
I just spent about 30 minutes setting up a developers account and a few pages so I could see how this was set up. If you go to http://www.rpmurphy.com/misc/sample.php , you can log in and see a page when you have signed in. On that page will be additional information regarding this post and the Facebook Development Platform.