Re:50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica i...
by untog on Saturday March 17, 2018 @06:11PM
(#16609324)
No, it's worse, they just gave it away for free.
Until 2014 or so an app could request permission to view almost any data a user stores on Facebook. That's not great, but hey, you could argue it's not Facebook's fault that people don't understand permission prompts (I'd disagree with you, but...). But those same prompts allowed users to give away their friend's data, so absolutely anyone you're friends with could take some stupid personality test and give away your information in the process, and there was no way you'd even know.
Until 2014 or so an app could request permission to view almost any data a user stores on Facebook. That's not great, but hey, you could argue it's not Facebook's fault that people don't understand permission prompts (I'd disagree with you, but...). But those same prompts allowed users to give away their friend's data, so absolutely anyone you're friends with could take some stupid personality test and give away your information in the process, and there was no way you'd even know.