BBC runs data mining app on Facebook…it works
‘I wonder why they call it Miner when it tells jokes?’
We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.
But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, and those of the users’ friends, and e-mailing them out of Facebook, to our inbox.
When you add an application, unless you say otherwise, it is given access to most of the information in your profile. That includes information you have on your friends even if they think they have tight security settings.
I feel bad for Facebook. Its users want all this privacy — or are completely oblivious — yet they provide all the information they’re so concerned about to a system they hardly understand.
Even as an advocate for digital privacy, I can’t defend Facebook users. There’s really no guarantee that your information — that you input — is certain to remain under your control on that site. It says so in Facebook’s Terms of Use:
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
Digital privacy is about infringements upon your information where you should have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as e-mail. Facebook, on the other hand, clearly states that the Company owns your information. The BBC just showed that they do as well.
See also:
+ Facebook: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave
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