Facebook problems with privacy
An assumption was made recently, that while searching Facebook.com RSS feeds, the only feeds available were ones that covered information which was designed as public by users. However, the research seems to be very superficial. According to blogs.zdnet.com when fully explored Facebook.com RSS feeds in relation to a user’s privacy settings, it was alerted to the fact that many of the available feeds are publicly accessible.
Although Status updates can be designed as only viewable by friends who are also members of Facebook, all user have to do is miss to turn off a second tick box and all his/hers friends will be able to subscribe to users’ updates too. If he or she leaves the tick on, it results in a publicly accessible RSS feed of your Facebook. This actually means your status updates will be viewable not only by your friends, but by all other Facebook members and in some circumstances even all internet users.
Blogs.zdnet.com made a statement that despite making notes accessible by Facebook friends only, and ticking the box “Anyone who can see my notes can subscribe to my notes”, which is on by default, a public RSS exists.
There are no privacy options for Posted Items at all, therefore RSS feed exists.
Privacy of personal data is very important nowadays and it’s a great risk for Facebook users, for there is no requirement that reader or user of theses feeds be the “friend” of individual, moreover, he doesn’t necessarily have to be subscribed to Facebook. It surely needs better design.
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