It has been revealed this last week by the Wall Street Journal that many of the most popular apps on Facebook have been secretly transmitting users' identification information to several Internet tracking companies and advertising firms. The most troubling aspect of the revelation, is that it has happened to even users who have chosen Facebook's strictest privacy settings.
Among the information transmitted, are users' names, gender, age, income level, Online activities and information about their friends too. Most of these information transmitting apps belong to outside developers including some of the most popular game makers like Zynga Game Network Inc.'s FarmVille, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille may have violated Faceboook's rules and the social network site has taken action and some of those offending apps have been temporary disabled while the social networking company is looking for a technical solution to turn the loophole.
For more, see WSJ.com
Showing posts with label privacy violations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privacy violations. Show all posts
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Family Tracker app for iPhone allows to keep track of iPhone users.
The new Apple iPhone 4 has been making the news lately because of problems with its antenna resulting in dropped calls and frustration from users. But that did not stop apps developers to go full speed ahead and produce apps suited to the new phone. One of those apps is the Family Tracker that when installed on the phone, and turned on, allows to the person in need to know all the times the whereabouts of the actual phone's user, to be able to do just that.
The app runs unseemly in the background and checks on the phone location via its GPS and uploads the findings to the Family Tracker's servers. From there, the person who signs up for the service-generally the with with the need to track the user-, can log in to the service's Web site or from their own iPhone to have an idea to where the phone is actually located. It goes without saying that the person being tracked has to give his or her consent and be willing to keep the service running in the background for it to wrk.
The app has even a "ping" function that allow for push notification which is a way for the person doing the tracking, to send a request to the phone user through the the service and receive his or her GPS location if they choose to acknowledge the request. That added feature is important since it can work on older iPhones.
Citing some users, AppScout, said that the app is dogged by bugs and is slow to display updates.It goes without saying that the person being tracked has to give his or her consent and be willing to keep the service running in the background for it to wrk.
It sells for $5.99 and is available for download at the iTunes store.
For more, see AppScout.com
The app runs unseemly in the background and checks on the phone location via its GPS and uploads the findings to the Family Tracker's servers. From there, the person who signs up for the service-generally the with with the need to track the user-, can log in to the service's Web site or from their own iPhone to have an idea to where the phone is actually located. It goes without saying that the person being tracked has to give his or her consent and be willing to keep the service running in the background for it to wrk.
The app has even a "ping" function that allow for push notification which is a way for the person doing the tracking, to send a request to the phone user through the the service and receive his or her GPS location if they choose to acknowledge the request. That added feature is important since it can work on older iPhones.
Citing some users, AppScout, said that the app is dogged by bugs and is slow to display updates.It goes without saying that the person being tracked has to give his or her consent and be willing to keep the service running in the background for it to wrk.
It sells for $5.99 and is available for download at the iTunes store.
For more, see AppScout.com
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