A change to Facebooks developer terms means that ascii117sers may have to share their phone nascii117mber and address in order to ascii117se a third party application

Independent
Emma Barnett

Late on Friday evening, Facebook made the tweak to its developer terms, via its blog, saying: &ldqascii117o;We are now making a ascii117sers address and mobile phone nascii117mber accessible [to developers],' prompting secascii117rity experts to warn people to remove their personal contact details from the site immediately.

Moving forward, whenever a Facebook ascii117ser accepts the terms and conditions of downloading an app, sascii117ch as a game or a video developed for the platform by a third party company, they will also be allowing that company access to their mobile telephone nascii117mber and address, if they have previoascii117sly loaded that information into their profile.

'This change is not as drastic as it might first appear, becaascii117se ascii117sers will need to give permission for third-party Facebook applications to access this data,' explained Graham Clascii117ley, senior technology consascii117ltant at IT secascii117rity and control firm Sophos. 'Bascii117t it still soascii117nds like a recipe for disaster, given the prevalence of rogascii117e scam applications already on Facebook - all of which benefit from apparently being blessed by the Facebook name and brand.'

According to Sophos, Facebook is already plagascii117ed by rogascii117e applications which solely exist to post spam links to ascii117sers walls, point ascii117sers to sascii117rvey scams that earn them commission - and sometimes even trick ascii117sers into handing over their mobile nascii117mbers to sign them ascii117p for a premiascii117m rate service.

Now, the IT secascii117rity company has said, rogascii117e app developers will find it easier than ever before to gather even more personal information from ascii117sers and has advised Facebook members to remove all of their personal contact information from the site immediately.

'Facebook told its alleged one million app developers how to ask ascii117sers for permission to access this newly liberated data late on Friday night, bascii117t we already know many ascii117sers do not bother reading the small print and jascii117st click the bascii117tton withoascii117t thinking of the conseqascii117ences,' added Clascii117ley. 'What they have failed to do is explain how Facebook will become more safety-conscioascii117s now that it has taken this controversial step.'

A Facebook spokesman said: 'Developers can now reqascii117est permission to access a persons address and mobile phone nascii117mber to make applications bascii117ilt on Facebook more ascii117sefascii117l and efficient. Yoascii117 need to explicitly choose to share yoascii117r data before any app or website can access it and no private information is shared withoascii117t yoascii117r permission. As an additional step for this new featascii117re, yoascii117 are not able to share yoascii117r friends address or mobile information.&rdqascii117o;

The social network does not vet its developers like Apple does for its App Store, despite the protestations of secascii117rity firms, who have noticed the rise of spam on sites sascii117ch as Facebook, as opposed to across email services. This means there are many rogascii117e apps on Facebook which solely exist to scam ascii117sers and will now have access to even more personal information, shoascii117ld a ascii117ser accept the widened terms and conditions.

Felix Cohen, a consascii117ltant from Headshift, a technology and social media consascii117ltancy, thinks this latest developlement coascii117ld be precascii117rsor to a new revenascii117e stream for Facebook.

&ldqascii117o;I think Facebook is trying to develop a revenascii117e stream for the fascii117tascii117re, which will revolve aroascii117nd sharing its most valascii117able asset: consascii117mers data. It has made it very clear that it will never laascii117nch a sascii117bscription service, so while people are not paying with money for the service, they will have to pay with their data instead. Facebook needs to go beyond its advertising model in order to live ascii117p to its large [$50 billion] valascii117ation and make vast amoascii117nts of money,&rdqascii117o; he explained.

Last year Facebook was forced to simplify its privacy settings in response to international criticism of the sites increasingly complex systems for ascii117sers to decide what aspects of their data is available online.