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Danger: Facebook 'Dislike Button' Is Just Another Scam

by Amar Toor on August 16, 2010 at 11:05 AM

Facebook Dislike

Not to be party poopers or anything, but you know all those statuses you've seen on your friends' Facebook profiles, claiming to have finally installed that elusive 'Dislike Button?' Totally fake. Tragic news, we know, but, as of now, there's still no official dislike button, and anyone with a status claiming otherwise is just another victim of the latest scam to hit Facebook. As Sophos explains, the scam seems to be spreading through status updates that read, "I just got the Dislike button, so now I can dislike all of your dumb posts lol!!" or, alternatively, "Get the official DISLIKE button NOW!" Both versions, predictably enough, are followed by a link.

Of course, you're not gullible enough to actually click on the link, because if you did, you'd end up on a page asking you to 'install' the button. At this point, your internal alarms should go off, because if the dislike button were real, Facebook would've just automatically added it to your profile. If, on the other hand, you go ahead and click through the installation process, you'll have to first grant the app permission to run on your profile. The app will then automatically post the same link and message to your profile, before asking you to fill out a survey in order to complete the installation. Upon filling out the survey, you'll land on a Firefox add-on called FaceMod, which offers something called the "Facebook Dislike Button (the Original)."

At this point, it doesn't seem like the FaceMod add-on has anything to do with this scam, aside from providing a convenient cover for whoever's trying to make a few cents off these surveys. There's also no indication that the add-on is corrupt or malicious -- but it's definitely not official. So if you want to install FaceMod's button, you should probably do so directly from Mozilla's add-on site, and not through some suspicious link you find on your Facebook feed. For our money, though, we'd recommend holding off until an authentic dislike button comes along -- even if it means waiting for a long time. [From: Sophos, via: Mashable]

Tags: dislike, DislikeButton, facebook, FacebookApps, likebutton, scam, Scams, SocialNetworking, survey, top, Web

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