What Will Google Announce Next Week?
Facebook Forced To Let You Vote On Privacy Changes
Facebook API Hole Displays User Events to the World
Google software engineer Ka-Ping Yee discovered the lapse while toying around with the Graph API search query system. As Yee found out, searching for a given person in the system will often bring up a full list of the events that he or she is planning to attend, or has already attended. Most worrisome to Yee, though, was the fact that he couldn't figure out a way to keep his event information from leaking out. "I didn't opt in for this," the engineer wrote on his blog. "I even tried setting all my privacy settings for maximum privacy. But Facebook is still exposing the list of events I've attended, and maybe your event."
It's important to note that not everyone's social calendar slips through Facebook's cracks (although, as Yee made clear, Mark Zuckerberg's definitely does). And the list of events you're planning on attending may not be as confidential as, say, the contents of your message inbox. Yee, however, argues that your events calendar can reveal a lot more than you may think, including "your home address, your friends' home addresses, the names and groups of people you associate with, your hobbies, or your political or religious activities, for example."
How can you get around it, then? Yee thinks everyone should just click the 'Not Attending' box next to every invitation they receive. But before driving a stake through the heart of your online social calendar, it's worth heading over to zesty.ca/facebook, where you can search for your profile and see exactly what information is made public. Even if none of your vital data pops up, though, it's still pretty troubling to think that it does for some people. If the social networking site truly wants to realize its lofty goals, it must first acknowledge its ultimate reliance upon user confidence and trust -- both of which will only erode if Facebook doesn't plug its holes. [From: TheGuardian and ZestTyping]
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Comments
11
Subscribe to commentsburN n yuMmApr 27th 2010 6:22PM
I also find it annoying that you can not delete a facebook account. The only option is to suspend, or deactivate your account. where is the information being stored, if a simple login will restore the account?
Matthew ZurasApr 27th 2010 6:35PM
@ burN n yuMm
We wrote about this briefly last week. Check this link from Consumerist for a how-to on deleting your FB account. Good luck.
http://consumerist.com/2010/04/delete-your-facebook-account-forever.html
ohmargiedearApr 27th 2010 8:06PM
I am totally disgusted with Facebook. I was wary of joining in the first place but my kids encouraged me to do so. Since then I have received filthy emails from people claiming that they know me from Facebook. I don't understand how these things happen and am very disappointed.
dsherlineApr 27th 2010 6:42PM
You can permanently delete your facebook account. It tries to convince you to just deactivate it but after clicking enough boxes letting it know what you want you'll get an info window saying your account deactivated and will be permanently deleted if you don't log into it for 14 days. After their most recent round of changes I did just that.
dsherlineApr 27th 2010 6:47PM
In Reply To: ohmargiedear said 6:25PM on 4-27-2010
It sounds like all of your settings are set to share everything with "everyone", which is the facebook default setting. You need to go into the account tab, to settings, go through it one line at a time and set things to "friends" or "friends of friends'. That will nearly eliminate all of the spam friend requests.
BabsApr 27th 2010 6:59PM
Facebook is a very valuable communication tool, and is also great for networking. But only if you know all the ins and outs and are famililar enough to use it properly.
Rosey SerabianApr 27th 2010 8:21PM
If you don't want anyone to view your events, don't post them. You should have known that anything you put out there is free for anyone to see. An old boss once said to me, "Never say anything you wouldn't repeat in front of your grandmother or a judge." Good advice. If you don't want it to be public information, don't put it on facebook. Keep your own calendar on something rather historical, like PAPER.
E. MartinezApr 27th 2010 9:50PM
This is insane!!! I just read some of the posts from people who said they tried to delete their face book accounts and some said, even after months of not going onto face book, that their accounts were STILL activaded!!!! WHAT???? What's the purpose of going through all of those steps in order to delete the account only to have it still be there????
Now I'm wishing I hadn't signed up!!! When I was first asked to do so, I said NO and for a few months, I contiuned to say NO but then I caved because I was told NO ONE could see my info unless I "allowed" them to do so, total B.S. I'm now finding out!!!! But prior to finding this out, once I signed on and reconnected with old friends from High School, I was excited.
I'm just getting tired of changing my settings, it seems, once a month!! And why?? Because face book ISN'T putting our privacy at the forefront??? Come on. You can't make a claim such as..... only those YOU choose to "allow" will see your info and then later down the line, we learn different!!!
I'm not worried about a boss or potential boss or what I've said, etc. because I haven't really put anything out there that would be "damaging" to me but what I AM worried about is the fact that ANYONE, whether they know me or not, can look and find info on me through a site that claimed, basically, that *I* had the control!!! If they keep this up, I'll be done with face book. Well, that's if the link provided actually works that is. Again, I don't hold much faith in that due to the fact that I read what others had said about their so called "deleted accts"!!! Peace
LillianApr 28th 2010 1:12AM
I am very upset that someone was able to compromise my account and I haven't been on for a while now because of it I want to delete my account and be done with social networking once and for all.
judeApr 28th 2010 2:27AM
To me facebook is the SON of Big Brother
garyApr 28th 2010 6:12AM
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FOR FREE?