> This is why Queerty and Pandora silently installed applications on my profile
There is no way for an app to install on your profile without your permission, it's just not in the API and I see no reason why Facebook would give them access to a secret API. Are you sure you didn't sign in to Pandora with your Facebook account? This is a pretty serious accusation. I'm no facebook fan but we need to be honest in our criticism if we want to be credible.
I bought tickets on Fandango and later found the Fandango App in my FB profile. I never installed it or approved it--it just appeared. To me, that's simply wrong.
"Facebook spokesperson David Swain contacted us and confirmed that the appearance of unauthorized apps was a bug:
In this case, there was a bug that was showing applications on a user’s Application Settings page that the user hadn’t authorized. No information was shared with those applications and the user’s list of applications was not shown to anyone but the user. This bug has been fixed.
It does appear that unauthorized apps are no longer being added to users' pages, however any unwanted applications that were previously added will still need to be removed manually."
There certainly was a way for apps to do this. I had removed all third-party apps a few months ago (after allowing only a couple), but logged in a few weeks ago to find two third-party apps that I hadn't authorized.
It may have been a bug, and it may be different now, but there was certainly a period of time that apps could add themselves without my explicit permission.
From what I understand, what you say is true. When you go to Pandora, a bar pops up, on which you have the option to click 'No, Thanks'. If you click it, they won't have access to any of your Facebook information.
I went to pandora.com for the first time in years. It immediately started playing a song from a band that I have a fan page for on Facebook. I was not logged into Pandora.
There was the blue Facebook bar on top saying that Pandora is connected with my Facebook. I could click no to disable it.
There is a special service that Pandora, yelp and a few others are using. It is on by default and opt-out.
>There is no way for an app to install on your profile without your permission
How I understand the concept of the like button is this:
The like button is an extremely easy version of Facebook connect. When you are logged into Facebook and visit a site with the like button implementation, you have automatically logged in. You do not need to click the like button. (Remember you could once sign in automatically to TechCrunch's commenting system by just visiting).
This way Facebook can monitor the sites you visit and in future can serve you better ads on those websites than Google. (that is how they are a major Google competitor.
The so called apps that were installed without permission was was just a internal tracking tool that was made public. It still exsits but users just don't see it any more.
I have never clicked 'Like' on a non-Facebook page. Ever. The only content I have liked is other users' statuses or content. I even unliked all the things that it wanted to link to my profile to further farm usable data about me. Also, I'm rather convinced that the 'Like' ecosystem exists independently of the Instant Personalization -slash- "Selected Partners" stuff I'm more worried about.
Yes. It has been revealed that Facebook shared info behind the scenes with select partners. I believe that the Instant Personaiiztion feature (that was turned on without my consent) would allow app installs. Pandora doesn't even have Facebook Connect.
Trust me, when I opened Pandora and saw "Kyle Blahblah" likes the same music as you, I was furious. Which is when I found out I now had apps on my profile I had never approved.
The only app I ever wanted on my Facebook was Twitter, and oh boy, did I have more than that. Trust me, I know what I'm doing and I know that I can say with 100% confidence that I did NOT agree to install those apps. I understand how hard is is for me to convey my sincerity, but I know full well how an app is supposed to be presented for access to my profile, and that never happened.
edit Just checked Pandora. It definitely is piggy backing on Instant Personalization which is now turned off. Apparently Pandora even kindly gives one a way of shutting it off while still on a Pandora.com page which is nice. I must have missed that in my rage to go shut it off in my Facebook profile.
They must have recently added this. I found the same ("so-and-so who you never, ever contacted on Pandora, ever likes this artist"), and had to go into Facebook and remove Pandora as an "approved" application.
Actually, the ONLY reason I even knew it grabbed the info from Facebook was by the profile picture they automatically used, and would not let you change or delete.
There is no way for an app to install on your profile without your permission, it's just not in the API and I see no reason why Facebook would give them access to a secret API. Are you sure you didn't sign in to Pandora with your Facebook account? This is a pretty serious accusation. I'm no facebook fan but we need to be honest in our criticism if we want to be credible.