Facebook Adds Application Publisher Controls, But Application Privacy Holes Remain

Facebook recently announced that it was rolling out tools that would give users more granular control over content posted via third-party applications. More flexible privacy controls are always a welcome step, but this move does not address the privacy flaws with Facebook's third party application platform that are highlighted by our Facebook Privacy Quiz. Please demand that Facebook protect your information from third party applications!

What do these recent changes do? The new controls let Facebook users decide who can see each item of content that is posted from an application. For example, users can decide that they only want their friends to know which Twilight guy they are most compatible with or how many turnips they just picked on Farmville. Users already had the ability to control who could see content from applications through the "Posts By Me" privacy setting (which still functions as the default setting for application-published content) but they can now control access on an item-by-item or application-by-application basis.

While these more granular controls are a positive step, it is important to remember that they do not address the fact that third party applications on Facebook can, by default, access almost all of the information on a user's profile as well as most of the data on any of their friends' profiles. As we illustrated in our Facebook Privacy Quiz, this means that if one of your friends runs an app, they could be handing over your personal information to that application's developer. While you can limit the data you share with applications your friends run by customizing your privacy settings, you can no longer opt out of applications totally, and you have no way of knowing how much of your information is being accessed by apps.

Until this massive "app gap" is fixed, it's hard to get too excited over minor tweaks to application privacy settings.

If you're unhappy with the current application policies, Demand your dotRights and request that Facebook improve third party application privacy. This recent change is a small step in the right direction, but we should expect and demand more!