Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette,
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as well. Normally sits next to me,
Speaker 1: but today we're sitting across one another. It's senior writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Hey, there, you know this uh, this new
Speaker 1: podcast um situation here where you're actually sitting across from
Speaker 1: me is totally throwing me off. Yeah, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of creepy. I just wish they hadn't put razor blades
Speaker 1: in the chair. I just wish because it's really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I just wish you didn't have dead eyes. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: so let's uh, let's start off this podcast on a
Speaker 1: positive note. All right? Then? Still we started over there? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep going. We're one take. Darn it, don't
Speaker 1: you remember we do this in one take. I just
Speaker 1: should respect my privacy. Oh well, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. You know, I try to respect everyone's private information,
Speaker 1: just like one of our favorite social media network gig sites.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, why don't we lead in with a little
Speaker 1: listener mail because I've got something for you. Okay, So
Speaker 1: here's some listener mail. This comes from Anne Marie, who says, Hi, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: Hi Chris. I enjoy your podcast and would be interested
Speaker 1: in hearing a podcast about just how much information Facebook
Speaker 1: apps can draw. I think many folks would be interested
Speaker 1: in hearing about just how much information info can be
Speaker 1: pulled by the apps and games, even if you set
Speaker 1: your privacy settings to not send out much info. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the great work and Marie. So today we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about Facebook applications, your privacy, and how these three
Speaker 1: things come together to essentially devour your privacy. They don't see,
Speaker 1: your privacy pretty much goes out the window. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: and I don't think most people do want to know.
Speaker 1: I think most people don't want to know. First of all,
Speaker 1: let's step in the way back machine. In fact, I
Speaker 1: expect to hear amazing time traveling special effects. So let's
Speaker 1: let's revel in that. I bet there will be some.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that nice boy. That's no pressure to live
Speaker 1: at all, is it? Sorry? Liz. But anyway you'll come
Speaker 1: up with something we've said that. Oh you know, I
Speaker 1: totally forgot to set the time. We're gonna have to
Speaker 1: do it again. No, no, no, We'll just we'll just
Speaker 1: imagine that we did. So let's go back to when
Speaker 1: Facebook first premieres, and of course it's originally for college students.
Speaker 1: Eventually it gets rolled out to high school students, and
Speaker 1: then a little bit later it gets rolled out to
Speaker 1: the rest of us who graduated long ago, and uh,
Speaker 1: and took over. Actually yeah, and so at this point,
Speaker 1: Facebook does not have any third party applications. Uh. It
Speaker 1: had a lot of applications that Facebook develop for themselves, uh,
Speaker 1: in partnership with other people in some cases, or other companies.
Speaker 1: But that's right. So before May two thousand seven, you
Speaker 1: had basic applications like being able to share photos and
Speaker 1: things like that. But but that was about it, right,
Speaker 1: and so Facebook was the only entity you were dealing
Speaker 1: with in that in that case, and then in May
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, Facebook starts to talk about it's uh
Speaker 1: Application Developer program, where they start to allow third parties
Speaker 1: to develop applications to run on Facebook. Facebook would act
Speaker 1: as the platform and the applications would run on top
Speaker 1: of it. The applications themselves would exist on other servers,
Speaker 1: so it's not Facebook's servers that are running these other apps.
Speaker 1: And these could be practically anything that you can imagine.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the early apps were things like,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, zombies, pirates, Ninja's like you could you
Speaker 1: could play games where you're tagging people to become zombies
Speaker 1: or pirates, ninjas or whatever. Your friend just bit you, Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: do you want to join Werewolf Wars or whatever it was?
Speaker 1: And so, um, well poking was around before because that
Speaker 1: was a Facebook thing, but their super Poke super Poke
Speaker 1: is different, yes, super duper Poke, yes, yes, all the
Speaker 1: different Poke variations. Um so those kind of explode onto
Speaker 1: the scene. And what people may not have realized at
Speaker 1: the beginning was that by opting into these applications, they
Speaker 1: were essentially giving these third parties access to all of
Speaker 1: their information, and according to the terms of service, those
Speaker 1: third parties could pretty much do whatever they wanted with
Speaker 1: that information. And not only was it your information, it
Speaker 1: was linked to your friends pages as well, and in
Speaker 1: some cases at least the developer would be able to
Speaker 1: access your friends pages even if your friends had set
Speaker 1: their profiles to private. So let's say that you have
Speaker 1: set your profile to private, I have Okay, well this
Speaker 1: this is very fitting, all right. So for those of
Speaker 1: you who have set your profiles to private, I imagine
Speaker 1: that one of the reasons for that is so that
Speaker 1: you were not targeted by third parties, by people who
Speaker 1: are just you know, wanting to sell you something or whatever.
Speaker 1: You just want your Facebook experience to be you and
Speaker 1: the friends that you have chosen to contact and and
Speaker 1: connect with through Facebook. You don't want anything beyond that. Uh.
Speaker 1: The problem with these apps is that if any of
Speaker 1: those friends that you have connected with were to install
Speaker 1: one of these apps on their on their Facebook profile,
Speaker 1: that third party developer would now be able to read
Speaker 1: your information as if he or she were one of
Speaker 1: your friends. So this is a problem obviously, it's already
Speaker 1: that's a violation of privacy right there. Now, what kind
Speaker 1: of information are we talking about, Well, anything that you
Speaker 1: might have given Facebook. So any of your you know,
Speaker 1: sexual preferences or relationship status. Um, you're the way you
Speaker 1: vote movies, you like TV today, that's a big one.
Speaker 1: Your birth day, your gender, um, well, none of that
Speaker 1: could be used for any kind of identity theft. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, not like social security numbers. It could. However,
Speaker 1: it could very easily be used in some cases for
Speaker 1: identity theft. Actually, but I was I was being facetious.
Speaker 1: I I understand, but sometimes we have to spell these
Speaker 1: out because otherwise I get listener mail um and so, yes,
Speaker 1: it could be used for identity theft. But even if
Speaker 1: it's not used for that, it can be used. These
Speaker 1: third party developers could sell your information to vendors who
Speaker 1: are targeting advertising at you. And again, you have no
Speaker 1: say in this because it's all part of the terms
Speaker 1: of service in the applications. And and furthermore, in the
Speaker 1: early days of apps, one of the biggest problems was
Speaker 1: that applications it had absolutely no need to access all
Speaker 1: of that information. By default, we're getting all of that information. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you'd be like, Hey, I want this cool application
Speaker 1: that lets me give virtual balloons to my friends, and
Speaker 1: suddenly you know, you're you're you install that application, and
Speaker 1: you've just handed over your information, including things like your
Speaker 1: relationship status and your sexual orientation and your job history
Speaker 1: and your education history. Why do they need that if
Speaker 1: all you're doing is handing over a picture of a
Speaker 1: balloon to one of your friends. Yes, yes, that's true.
Speaker 1: Or you know, if you wanted to find out which
Speaker 1: Harry Potter house you belong to. Yes. Oh, don't even
Speaker 1: get me started on quizzes. All right, So anyone who
Speaker 1: has befriended me on Facebook probably knows that I I
Speaker 1: harbor a deep seated hatred for quizzes on Facebook. I
Speaker 1: think that they are the most irritating app to come
Speaker 1: out of Facebook, or out of any third party developer,
Speaker 1: I should say, because again, Facebook is not the one
Speaker 1: developing this, They're just providing the platform. Um. It's one
Speaker 1: of the most irritating things to come out uh in
Speaker 1: the Facebook realm. Ever, Um, I I hate seeing them.
Speaker 1: First of all. I think pretty much every quiz will
Speaker 1: tell you. The result will tell you what you wanted
Speaker 1: to hear in the first place. Yes, so you don't
Speaker 1: learn anything new about yourself by taking one of these quizzes, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna learn that. Hey, you know what I
Speaker 1: learned today. I'm a slithering No if you're sliw yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm slithering through and through. I mean we
Speaker 1: all know this. That's I mean that's the you know,
Speaker 1: dark Mark, I'm all about it. You know, it's gonna
Speaker 1: move the next tattoo. So the uh, that's the thing
Speaker 1: is that it wouldn't tell me something I didn't already know.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna answer these and and a lot
Speaker 1: of people I'm guessing are answering these quizzes in such
Speaker 1: a way so that they'll get the result they want sure,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're like, oh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be Cyclops, want of Wolverine, So I'm going to choose
Speaker 1: this answer because that's more of a Wolverine answer. So,
Speaker 1: because anybody can write these quizzes and so they're often
Speaker 1: very very transparent to begin with. Right now, That's another
Speaker 1: interesting thing is that people can write these quizzes using
Speaker 1: different apps. Now that you have to install the app
Speaker 1: again through Facebook to be able to write these quizzes.
Speaker 1: So first of all, you're giving a third party developer
Speaker 1: access to your information because you want to write a quiz,
Speaker 1: and then they're getting information from everyone who takes that
Speaker 1: quiz because they're the ones who developed the tool for
Speaker 1: the quiz itself. The information is not coming back to
Speaker 1: you when people take your quiz. It's going. And I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about you know, their results. No one, no
Speaker 1: one over at the application cares about what the results are.
Speaker 1: They care about that personal data. So the people who
Speaker 1: make the applications that allow you to create quizzes, they've
Speaker 1: got enormous databases full of information because every so many
Speaker 1: people are creating quizzes and taking quizzes. That's one of
Speaker 1: the things that you see if you do a lot
Speaker 1: of reading about so social networks, as Jonathan and I have,
Speaker 1: is that a lot of people see the value in
Speaker 1: companies like Facebook and Twitter in my space is not
Speaker 1: in the website itself, but in the information about the
Speaker 1: subscribers because they're able to market to those people and
Speaker 1: that the amazing demographic information that they've got at their disposal. Um,
Speaker 1: that's the real value of the company. So basically, any
Speaker 1: of that information that gets distributed to other parties also
Speaker 1: gives them, you know, the same the same or similar
Speaker 1: types of power. Of course, Um, some of that's changing,
Speaker 1: you know. I actually saw right before we came in,
Speaker 1: I saw an article on the Computer World that Tony
Speaker 1: Bradley had written. Um, there's a company in Seattle called
Speaker 1: app Bank, and they are going to help people write
Speaker 1: apps essentially um as in, you know, you can actually
Speaker 1: create your own apps and quizzes using their platform and
Speaker 1: basically they get a cut of whatever money you make
Speaker 1: with your app or quiz. UM. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting because I don't know if that information you know,
Speaker 1: not to put I I don't know what app banks
Speaker 1: motives are. I would assume that they are legitimate, you
Speaker 1: know organization that is, you know, involved in and trying
Speaker 1: to create and cash in on their ability to help
Speaker 1: you make applications because the applications themselves. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: there are quite a few legitimate applications out there for
Speaker 1: Facebook and they are making you know, money for those developers.
Speaker 1: So you know, I don't I don't think at bank
Speaker 1: UH is trying to do anything nefarious, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: stop anybody from signing up for, you know, for their
Speaker 1: services and trying to get information that way, so you know,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to be very careful. I think I
Speaker 1: think it's important for any person using Facebook to understand
Speaker 1: that when you install an app on your Facebook, UM,
Speaker 1: you are essentially giving that vendor access to your profile
Speaker 1: as if you were befriending that person. UM, keep that
Speaker 1: in mind. So if you post stuff on your Facebook
Speaker 1: that you know, you don't mind if your friends see it,
Speaker 1: but you don't really want anyone else to see it,
Speaker 1: remember that before you start installing apps, because you are
Speaker 1: essentially giving that that entity the same rights as your
Speaker 1: friends and UM and again like the whole, if you
Speaker 1: set your your says to private and someone else, uh
Speaker 1: installs this app and that allows the vendor to look
Speaker 1: in at you, that would probably upset you. I mean
Speaker 1: it would upset me. And it's true, it totally can happen. Um.
Speaker 1: This has caused lots of issues for Facebook. There was
Speaker 1: one point where Facebook said Facebook executives were saying that, uh,
Speaker 1: they were going to change the app development process so
Speaker 1: that apps would only be able to access the information
Speaker 1: they absolutely needed to have in order to function the
Speaker 1: way they were supposed to function. You know why that is?
Speaker 1: It's because groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the
Speaker 1: a c l U and uh, you know, the Canadian
Speaker 1: Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic have been putting pressure
Speaker 1: on Facebook to change their policies. It's called Facebook A
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to do that. You love
Speaker 1: you love listener mail from Canada. I've got I've got
Speaker 1: more to say about Canada in a little bit, but
Speaker 1: go ahead, okay, Uh yeah, I mean apparently Facebook was
Speaker 1: retaining information from accounts that had been closed, and uh
Speaker 1: that's you know, against the law, and in Canada, right,
Speaker 1: there was there was one point where I saw I
Speaker 1: saw a claim from a Facebook executive that was made
Speaker 1: to someone who writes it for Senet. I apologize because
Speaker 1: I this is from memory. It's just from an article
Speaker 1: I've read ages ago. But I remember that the executive
Speaker 1: said that they Facebook was certain that once that the
Speaker 1: data that the vendors had wasn't being used for any
Speaker 1: uh any well, you know, underhanded purposes, and the reporters
Speaker 1: once was. There's no way Facebook would know that because
Speaker 1: once the information leaves your servers, you don't know what
Speaker 1: how it's being used. I mean, you you can maybe
Speaker 1: hopefully weed out the obvious bad apples from the bunch,
Speaker 1: but there's no guarantee that any particular vendor is behaving
Speaker 1: the way it should based upon the general policies. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's not limited to you know, social media. That's you know,
Speaker 1: well sure sure, But the point being that, you know,
Speaker 1: Facebook really couldn't make this guarantee that the data was
Speaker 1: but that good. But they don't know. Now, let's let's
Speaker 1: talk quickly about Beacon, since that just beacon, Beacon Beacon.
Speaker 1: So Beacon was this, uh, this this concept that Facebook
Speaker 1: came up with that was almost universally um decried. They
Speaker 1: people just hated the idea of Beacon anyone who was
Speaker 1: like really looking into the privacy issues anyway. So there's
Speaker 1: what Beacon did was it was a kind of an
Speaker 1: application that would was automatically part of Facebook. You didn't
Speaker 1: opt into this, In fact, you had to opt out
Speaker 1: of it. And Facebook doesn't necessarily make things easy to
Speaker 1: opt out of. You have to really know where to look. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to really know where to look in order
Speaker 1: to change certain privacy settings and do things like opt
Speaker 1: out of applications like Beacon. And the idea behind Beacon
Speaker 1: was that it would link your activities through various sights
Speaker 1: to your Facebook accounts, so that you could presumably keep
Speaker 1: your friends up to speed with what it was you
Speaker 1: were interested in. And the idea behind here is kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, as kind of nice as the idea is
Speaker 1: that you know you can if you're interested in a
Speaker 1: in a book series, for example, you would automatically let
Speaker 1: people know that, hey, you just purchase the latest you
Speaker 1: know in this in this series of books, so people
Speaker 1: could say, hey, you know, maybe I should read that
Speaker 1: because he's a cool guy. I like his taste, and
Speaker 1: he's reading this. Now. Let's say it sort of serves
Speaker 1: two purposes. I mean, one, you've got the social networking
Speaker 1: aspect of it, where you're sharing cool stuff with your friends. Hey,
Speaker 1: I just checked out this cool new cd uh. And
Speaker 1: you have the company on the other end, who goes, hey,
Speaker 1: and you can buy it from my store right now
Speaker 1: for just only that. But again more targeting advertising because
Speaker 1: they start seeing what individual people like to purchase and
Speaker 1: then they can target ads specifically at you based on that,
Speaker 1: and and it makes sense you'd go, Okay, well, they
Speaker 1: probably won't mind this as much because we're adding sort
Speaker 1: of a social flavor to it and maybe it'll get
Speaker 1: people to be cool. And it's kind of like I
Speaker 1: think it was kind of presuming that this way, it
Speaker 1: takes out the middleman, Like, you know, you would probably
Speaker 1: want people to know that you are shooting this series,
Speaker 1: so we're just gonna take that that extra step of
Speaker 1: you having to type it out and we're just gonna
Speaker 1: make that automatic, which could possibly go wrong with this.
Speaker 1: So here's some Here's some issues that Facebook thought about
Speaker 1: before they implemented this, or if they did think about it,
Speaker 1: they didn't think about it hard enough. One is that
Speaker 1: let's say that you're searching for something that you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want the world to know that you're looking for.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you're uh buying a book on cancer treatments. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's very serious issue. And now suddenly if it goes
Speaker 1: to your Facebook that so and so just bought, you know,
Speaker 1: living with Cancer book. Now all these people who may
Speaker 1: not have known whether you know, whether it's you who
Speaker 1: are suffering through this or you're buying it for someone
Speaker 1: else that you share about. You don't want all your
Speaker 1: Facebook friends to something like, oh my god, are you
Speaker 1: okay if you're not ready to talk about that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, especially if it's not you know, your own
Speaker 1: condition and it's someone else's. You don't want every the
Speaker 1: whole world to know that you just bought this book.
Speaker 1: So there's that there's that kind of privacy issue, And
Speaker 1: of course there's also you know, if you were buying
Speaker 1: something a little more lascivious. Let's say the heaving bosom
Speaker 1: for instance. Now in hardback, if you wanted to go
Speaker 1: and purchase the heaving bosom, uh, you know, then next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone knows you bought this, and you're going
Speaker 1: to withstand tons and tons of teasing for the rest
Speaker 1: of your natural life. Please stop. Look, it was for
Speaker 1: a relative anyway, Or let's say you were purchasing it
Speaker 1: for someone a gift, a surprise for that person. But
Speaker 1: it's not a surprise anymore because it was published on Facebook.
Speaker 1: And that's a good point. So that's a very good
Speaker 1: reason right there. Yeah, there are plenty of reasons that
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with oh, well, you know it's
Speaker 1: all the people who are worried about their you know,
Speaker 1: they're porn getting out there on Facebook. No, it has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with that. I mean for some people, sure,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it has something to do with that. But
Speaker 1: it goes well beyond just those kind of like he he,
Speaker 1: he's a naughty boy kind of of comments. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of legitimate reasons why a perfectly
Speaker 1: innocent purchase you would not want that to be broadcast
Speaker 1: across the world Wide Web, and Facebook is pretty broad.
Speaker 1: I mean there's millions, hundreds of millions of users. So
Speaker 1: Beacon got a lot of complaints starting off the right.
Speaker 1: Off the bat actually ended up there ended up being
Speaker 1: a class action lawsuit leveled against Facebook, uh by by
Speaker 1: a group of users who all claimed that Beacon was
Speaker 1: violating their privacy and that, for instance, the main crux
Speaker 1: here was an issue with Blockbuster. Okay, so that was
Speaker 1: one of the vendors that was partnered with Beacon. If
Speaker 1: you were to rent a movie from Blockbuster, it would
Speaker 1: send that out on your Facebook feed, and suddenly everyone
Speaker 1: knows that you just rented you know, Big Trouble Little China,
Speaker 1: best movie ever made, by the way, Um, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it. Yeah, no, it's it's Big Trouble Little China.
Speaker 1: Godfather too. Um so you haven't seen cud Father to
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Alright, wait, I gotta take a moment.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I can continue just off the bat. Right,
Speaker 1: So anyway, with broadcast this, well that's technically against the law.
Speaker 1: Companies like Blockbuster are legally obligated to keep that information private. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's in this specific instance, right, It's not all media.
Speaker 1: It's in in this broke a specific law, right, a
Speaker 1: specific law that states that that vendors that rent out
Speaker 1: in films cannot publish what people are renting, what specific
Speaker 1: people are renting. Now you might be able to say, like,
Speaker 1: this is the most popular rental this month, but that's
Speaker 1: different because it's anonymous. You're not saying Bob Smith rented
Speaker 1: this this month. So anyway, that that class action lawsuit
Speaker 1: eventually lead to Facebook saying, WHOA, sorry, we totally did
Speaker 1: not think this through before we pushed beacon out the door,
Speaker 1: and they quietly discontinued it, and then in September of
Speaker 1: two thousand nine they officially killed it. Uh. Now, Facebook Connect,
Speaker 1: which is a new service on Facebook, does a lot
Speaker 1: of the same things, but it's all opt in. You
Speaker 1: can choose what you you share with Facebook Connect, as
Speaker 1: opposed to it being you know, the default. So that's
Speaker 1: that's a good step. But I mean, it does a
Speaker 1: lot of the same things. So if you're using Facebook Connect,
Speaker 1: just be aware that it's essentially the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: just now they're they're doing it with your permission as
Speaker 1: opposed to just assuming you're okay with it, right, right,
Speaker 1: You know there there actually have been, um, some applications
Speaker 1: that have asked for very sensitive information like credit card numbers,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and um, you gotta wonder what they're going
Speaker 1: to do with that. Um you really shouldn't wonder. Just
Speaker 1: don't use those Yeah, that's I've actually seen an article
Speaker 1: by by somebody who didn't realize that it had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with you know, um, they were giving away
Speaker 1: their very personal information. Yeah no, no, you really shouldn't
Speaker 1: be giving them that kind of stuff. Giving adding those
Speaker 1: kind of aplications gives them the vendors way too much
Speaker 1: power over your information, whether they're planning on doing anything
Speaker 1: with it or not. That's beside the point. Now, some
Speaker 1: some applications are actually phishing scams. They're trying to get
Speaker 1: your personal information so that they can neither commit identity
Speaker 1: theft or they can do a credit card fraud or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: So you know, looking to see what kind of information
Speaker 1: they're asking for and thinking about it before you just agree.
Speaker 1: That's that's key, you know. I mean, even if Facebook
Speaker 1: really buckles down and tries to prevent as much uh
Speaker 1: hanky panky as possible, stuff is gonna get through. Because
Speaker 1: we're talking about thousands of applications being added all the
Speaker 1: time and Facebook can't police all of them. If they did,
Speaker 1: then it would suddenly be a huge nightmare for Facebook.
Speaker 1: I mean you you know they they I'm sure they
Speaker 1: don't even have the manpower to do that. So, unlike
Speaker 1: Apple's App Store, where they review each app thoroughly before
Speaker 1: it goes live, I don't know how much time Facebook
Speaker 1: can spend looking at each individual application before it goes
Speaker 1: live on on the site. Um And a part of
Speaker 1: their philosophy was that the hive mind would kind of
Speaker 1: sort out what's good and what's not good, that people
Speaker 1: would adopt applications that are fun and useful and they
Speaker 1: would ignore the ones that are kind of fishy. I
Speaker 1: don't know how true that is, because if you look
Speaker 1: at some of the pictures people post to Facebook, I
Speaker 1: would say that some people don't have that critical thinking skill.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm just saying, if you have a picture
Speaker 1: of yourself unconscious with a bottle of booze laying next
Speaker 1: to your head as your profile picture, you may not
Speaker 1: have the critical thinking skills necessary to determine what is
Speaker 1: and is not a good application. Because you know, employers
Speaker 1: look at Facebook. Potential employers look at Facebook. Pretty sure
Speaker 1: a picture of you passed out next to a bottle
Speaker 1: is not gonna be the kind of thing that most
Speaker 1: employers are going to be looking for, unless you're interviewing
Speaker 1: for maxim or something. But um, so I said I
Speaker 1: was going to get back to Canada. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: kind of hoping you'd forget about that. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I've remembered day. So the Privacy Commission in Canada had
Speaker 1: major issues with Facebook. Um and took these issues to
Speaker 1: Facebook and demanded that Facebook makes some changes. And the
Speaker 1: very first thing they they raised. The first issue they
Speaker 1: raised was third party application developers. So let me just
Speaker 1: read this. This is a quick overview of what happened
Speaker 1: and what Facebook says it's going to do. The sharing
Speaker 1: of personal information with third party developers creating Facebook applications
Speaker 1: such as games and quizzes raises serious privacy risks. With
Speaker 1: more than one million developers around the globe, the Commissioner
Speaker 1: is concerned about a lack of adequate safeguards to effectively
Speaker 1: restrict those developers from accessing users personal information, along with
Speaker 1: information about their online friends. Facebook's response, Facebook has agreed
Speaker 1: to retrofit its application platform in a way that will
Speaker 1: prevent any application from accessing information until it obtains express
Speaker 1: consent for each category of personal information which wishes to access.
Speaker 1: Under this new permissions model, users adding an application will
Speaker 1: be advised that the application wants access to specific categories
Speaker 1: of information. The user will be able to control which
Speaker 1: categories of information and application is permitted to to access.
Speaker 1: There will also be a link to a statement by
Speaker 1: the developer to explain how it will use the data,
Speaker 1: which I think is kind of interesting. That's that's the
Speaker 1: first I've ever heard that about a link to actually
Speaker 1: say this is why we need the information that we're requesting. Um.
Speaker 1: No telling when this will take effect, but apparently Facebook
Speaker 1: says they'll totally do it, okay, UM, if you're curious.
Speaker 1: The other elements that the Privacy Commission was concerned with
Speaker 1: was d activating versus deleting accounts on Facebook, because if
Speaker 1: you deactivate, you haven't deleted. You're just you're just stepping back.
Speaker 1: We know, some of your information stays out there unless
Speaker 1: that you've written on other people's wall, you know, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. If their accounts are still active,
Speaker 1: that that material is still there well that and that
Speaker 1: was part of the issue was that they were stating,
Speaker 1: you know, Facebook really needs to define the difference between
Speaker 1: de activating and deleting, make it clear to the user,
Speaker 1: and make it easy for a user to choose whichever
Speaker 1: option he or she wants, because again, it ain't easy
Speaker 1: to find this stuff. You've got to really hunt around.
Speaker 1: But I mean that's you know, the whole purpose of
Speaker 1: the site is to connect people to each other, so
Speaker 1: it kind of, you know, making it easy to pop
Speaker 1: out of that is antithetical to their business model. Um.
Speaker 1: The other two elements were personal information of non users,
Speaker 1: so people who don't actually use Facebook but are visiting
Speaker 1: Facebook to look at whatever. And what to do with
Speaker 1: the accounts of deceit users, which we've talked about a
Speaker 1: little bit. You know, what happens to your online identity
Speaker 1: when you, you you know, shuffle off the mortal coil. I've
Speaker 1: been doing some research on that. I want to hit
Speaker 1: that again in greater details. Yeah, we're going to do another,
Speaker 1: I think, because that is a really interesting It's becoming
Speaker 1: more and more relevant because as as the current generation
Speaker 1: that's really the movers and shakers of of what's going
Speaker 1: on today and future generations which are going to be
Speaker 1: even more integrated with the online world. It's the stuff
Speaker 1: is kind of important. Um So anyway, good on you
Speaker 1: Canada for taking Facebook the task and holding them responsible
Speaker 1: for this kind of stuff because you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's and and hopefully this will these will be policies
Speaker 1: that will roll out worldwide and it won't just be
Speaker 1: for our Canadian friends, because then will be like, why
Speaker 1: do they get all the privacy? Really, you need to
Speaker 1: stop like poutine? What oh now that you're gonna get
Speaker 1: mail now? You know, because you just you just denigrated
Speaker 1: a a national food buddy. I don't like a lot
Speaker 1: of American national foods, is sure, Chris is a very
Speaker 1: picky eater. That's not even a joke. So let's boil
Speaker 1: it down. Okay, Facebook apps, Yes, they do get access
Speaker 1: to your information. Uh. Depending upon the application, it may
Speaker 1: get access to a lot of your information. What they
Speaker 1: do with that information is pretty much up to them.
Speaker 1: Um So, if you're okay with your information being spread
Speaker 1: throughout the Worldwide Web and being used for things like
Speaker 1: targeting advertising or whatever, feel free to use those applications.
Speaker 1: If you're a little more concerned, about your privacy. You
Speaker 1: might want to cut back a bit on the application use,
Speaker 1: especially applications that you don't know who's behind it, right,
Speaker 1: and quizzes, just stop doing them. Stop doing quizzes because
Speaker 1: really they're they're so irritating to have those pop up
Speaker 1: and fee fill up my friend feed so that I
Speaker 1: can't read any status is because I have to find
Speaker 1: out which hobbit my buddy is you read friend feed?
Speaker 1: I'm stunned. My my friend the my news feed where
Speaker 1: all my friends status is feed dot com. No, I
Speaker 1: very rarely get a friend feed. Yeah, Facebook, So we'll
Speaker 1: see how that works out. But uh and yeah, like
Speaker 1: I said, the quizzes don't really tell you anything you
Speaker 1: didn't already know, so it's useless anyway. Please stop taking them. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's thank you, So I do too, but that a
Speaker 1: new one pops up every day, at least one, and
Speaker 1: I've got friends who will take like six or seven
Speaker 1: at a time, so you'll just bloom blue bloop and uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to create a quiz that said what kind
Speaker 1: of Facebook user are you? And no matter what answers
Speaker 1: you put in, the result would be you're the kind
Speaker 1: of jerk who likes to take Facebook quizzes. You know
Speaker 1: it's he's going to do that now. Well, I can't
Speaker 1: because the quiz tool that I wanted to use specifically
Speaker 1: stated that you can't use the term Facebook in your
Speaker 1: quiz because they want to protect their their corporate identity.
Speaker 1: So even if I had created one, it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: worked out. And so you guys are spared my my
Speaker 1: snarky quiz. Well that's about all I have about Facebook
Speaker 1: apps and privacy. So I guess this takes us to
Speaker 1: our second installment of Listener, ma'am. And this listener mail
Speaker 1: comes from Nosh and I hope I'm saying that correctly
Speaker 1: because I don't have an pronunciation guide. Hi. I'm Noh
Speaker 1: twelve years, nine months and twenty six days old and
Speaker 1: I'm from Vietnam. How are you guys doing. I really
Speaker 1: like your podcast, so just keep on rocking. I would
Speaker 1: also like to thank you guys for putting in the
Speaker 1: effort to make a great and enjoyable podcast. But I
Speaker 1: have a request and could you guys simply at the
Speaker 1: end of every podcast us provide a short and brief
Speaker 1: summary covering all the main points that you guys were
Speaker 1: talking about so I can memorize them more easily. Thanks well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for that email. It's very nice
Speaker 1: of you to write. Um, we tried to sum up
Speaker 1: a little bit just then, because yeah, summing up is
Speaker 1: is useful. The challenge for us is that we don't
Speaker 1: script these podcasts out at all. Chris and I sit down,
Speaker 1: we've done our research, and then we just talk out
Speaker 1: through a you know, whatever the topic is, talk around
Speaker 1: it and give it context. So it's challenging to sum
Speaker 1: up at the end because it's just a conversation. So
Speaker 1: it's it's for one thing, I have to remember what
Speaker 1: I've talked about little last twenty five minutes, and I
Speaker 1: have trouble remembering what I said two minutes ago. So
Speaker 1: but we will see what we can do. We'll try
Speaker 1: and be as clear as possible, because we do understand
Speaker 1: the need for that kind of summary. If any of
Speaker 1: you have any comments, questions, concerns, anything like that, not
Speaker 1: no noah tech quests like my computer is not doing this,
Speaker 1: no tech support, but any other kind of questions, you
Speaker 1: can write us. Our email address is tech stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. If you want to learn more,
Speaker 1: about Facebook and different kinds of applications. You can read
Speaker 1: about that at how stuff works dot com. Crispy and
Speaker 1: I will put you again really soon for moral thiss
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics does it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com and be sure to check out the new
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