A new Facebook app has been developed to prevent the personal information leaked
to hackers.
Heng Xu Assistant professor of Information Science and Technology stated that “One illusion is that people think that they have set global privacy settings, so it’s secure,”
“But the broken element is in the third-party applications that people use to play games and interact in different ways with each other on Facebook,” added Xu, who led the study.
Xu also stated that many Facebook app developers make money by selling and sharing the data from their Facebook games and tools.
“The only way to find out how the information is going to be used is to go to each app’s website and review the terms of use,” Xu said. “And many people won’t do that.”
Members if they want to play a game they should agree for the Terms and agreements. But the problem is these terms and agreements are often different from the main Facebook Terms and agreements.
The sign-up screen currently is a general agreement that shows information third-party developers are requesting. If the member does not agree, the member cannot use the app.
The screen designed by the researchers allows members to decide what types of information they are comfortable sharing and with whom they want to share it.
Xu, who worked with Na Wang and Jens Grossklags, assistant professor, both of information sciences and technology, designed two alternative third-party privacy agreement screens to clearly show members what data and privacy details they agree to share.
These findings were presented at the Association for Computer Machinery Symposium on Computer Human Interaction for Management of Information Technology, Boston.
