New Data Policies Are a Good Reason to Delete Facebook Apps

Apparently slipping under the radar of some non-developers at the f8 conference yesterday was the fact that Facebook is ditching the limits on data retention for applications. Originally, developers could only store user data for 24 hours before having to flush it and request the information again from Facebook. That restriction has been nixed, and now developers can store user data for as long as they wish.

For developers, this is good news; applications should load more quickly and won't need to request data from Facebook every time they're launched. On the other hand, this gives companies the ability to access and store any of the data that you agree to share (and probably some you don't). As the blog Social Hacking notes, this persistent storage of user data makes Facebook apps a much more attractive target for hackers. Think about the number of Facebook users who have tried 'FarmVille,' then decided it wasn't for them. The developer no longer has to delete user data, even if the user removes the app from their Facebook profile. Suddenly, 'FarmVille' is a database loaded with the personal information of millions of users that no longer play the game.

Even more worrisome, Facebook has little control over how developers use the data collected by these apps. Not only would it be difficult, if not impossible, for Facebook to discern how the information was handled once it had been harvested, but the company simply doesn't have the resources to monitor the hundreds of thousands of available apps, either.

In light of these changes, we think it's advisable to do some Facebook app spring cleaning right now. From the Facebook home page, click "account" in the top right, and select "application settings" from the drop-down menu. Change the "show" option from "recently used" to "authorized." From here, it's simply a matter of clicking the "x" next to any applications that you no longer use or that are of questionable origin. [From: Read Write Web]

Tags: f8, facebook, facebookapps, privacy, socialnetworking, top, web