Facebook Stops Apps from Automatically Sharing User Activity
One of the most annoying and privacy violating features of many modern websites is the function that automatically shares what you’re doing on your Facebook timeline. From Spotify to Hulu, many websites have embraced the sharing capabilities of Facebook by automatically linking up with their users’ Facebook walls and sharing every song they listen to and every video they watch. Facebook, however, is tired of it, and has adjusted its rules to stop this automatic sharing.
“Starting today, custom actions that automatically publish back to Facebook as a person consumes content in your app will no longer be approved,” Facebook’s Henry Zhang wrote in a blog post. “The user should be aware that publishing to Facebook is occurring,” Facebook said. “This could manifest in many different ways but ultimately the user should not be surprised that Read actions are being published. “Hopefully this new rule will prevent sites from automatically informing all of your Facebook friends what you’re listening to or reading online. Facebook should be commended for stepping up to the plate on behalf of their users and protecting them from accidentally oversharing. Facebook often gets a lot of flak for its slow-moving reaction time to issues of online privacy, but this is a step in the right direction for properly protecting their users.
This article appears courtesy of our friends at Facecrooks.com.
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