Is anyone else getting fed up of FaceBook?

[lostcarpark]

I think the title says it all, but I'll try to explain how I feel about it.

From day one, I have been asking "what is it for?" and I'm still not sure what the answer is. It can be quite useful for finding old friends, then looking at their friends to find out who on their list I also know. There are a few people from school and college I've got back in touch with that way.

The various applications are supposed to make it useful, but I find most of them are just annoying. No I don't wantto be a zombie, a vampire, a warewolf, or whatever else someone thinks of. If I want to buy someone a pint, I'll do it down the pub where it's a lot more satisfying. And what's with all these wall things and other messengy things?

My problem is that I get a message saying someone has sent me a message, but in order to read this message, I have to install an application to let me read it. The first thing this application does (after insisting I share my personal information with it) is to spamall my friends and ask them to install the app too. Excuse me, but I respect my friends too much to ask them to install something I haven't even tried yet. Once I've got through all that, I find the message is a puppy dog and it wants me to see what happens if I forward it to all my friends. Thanks.

Could you imagine if we got emails telling us we had a message, but in order to read it we needed to download and install an application. We'd say, "no way, it's probably virus-infested spyware." However, when it's on a website it's supposed to be okay. The only difference is that it's our personal information rather than our PC that's at risk.

As I've hinted already, I have privacy concerns. Their privacy policy makes interesting reading...

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

Well, I'm sure they're only trying to be helpful, but this sort of thing makes me feel a little uneasy.

But even if we assume that Facebook themselves are completely trustworthy (which is a big assumption), what about all the third party writers of FaceBook applications? I expect the vast majority are honest and above board, but it only takes one bad lemon to write a "useful" app, then leave it sitting harvesting data for a couple of months, then they have a nice little stockpile of information to do as they see fit with. They probably can't access email addresses directly, but there's plenty of personal information they can access directly through Facebook, and more they can collect through the application. Believe me, there will be a big story about a rogue Facebook application developer in 2008.

Of course, Facebook will be collecting this post to provide me with a more personalised experience.

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> "what is it for?"

Scrabulous

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

I've heard that's good, but I'm crap at Scrabble. Dyslexic, you see. I can be looking at a pile of letters and completely miss the obvious 7-letter word staring at me until someone points it out.