This last week Facebook has officially separated the chat application, Facebook Messenger, from the application to manage our wall. What price do we have to pay for having to use the chat application? If you take a look at the terms of service, it is more than likely that you will not install it or immediately delete it from your devices. Fortunately, the Facebook application for iPad will continue as is, without having to install a second application to chat, which for now does not save, as far as possible, from this outrage.
The Facebook Messenger application, which has almost a billion downloads, requires the acceptance of an alarming number of permissions for them to do whatever they want with our personal data, and even more surprising, that it almost directly controls our mobile device. The Facebook Messenger application is an independent application but dependent on the social network. We can access it from the Facebook application itself, which will open the new and independent application. In this way, if we only want to chat, it is not necessary to open the Facebook application.
Here is a small summary of the most "aggressive" terms with our privacy:
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Allow the application to change the network connection.
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Allow the application to call phones without our intervention. This can lead to unexpected charges on our bill, and malicious apps can automatically make calls to toll numbers, which can make the bill incredibly large.
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Allow the application to send SMS. This, like the previous point, may imply charges on our invoice and that the malicious software is responsible for inflating the invoice further, subscribing us to payment services without our authorization.
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Allow the application to record audio conversations, by accessing our microphone.
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Allow the application to take video and photo captures. Another added function so that the application, as it pleases, can record videos or take pictures at its discretion.
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Allow the application to access our call log, including incoming and outgoing calls.
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Allow the application to access our phonebook stored on our device, including the frequency with which we establish contact with them, the emails we send and any other type of communication that we carry out with our contacts.
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Allow the application to read our personal information stored on our device.
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Allow the application to obtain the name of the accounts that you have created in the different applications installed in it. In this way, Facebook will know the services and applications that we regularly use on our device.
The fact that mobile apps and social media are so insidious is not new at all, We all know (or should know) that no app is really free. The so-called “free” applications are paid automatically by supplying data about the user, such as name, location, browsing history, etc. Example: surely it is not the first time that you have installed an application or game and it has been strange to you that it requests permission to establish our location when it really does not need it at all. Clearer, water. Mobile developers and social networks charge advertisers to show their targeted advertising to specific groups of people.
In a sense, if it is worth offering some personal information for a better experience and that at least the obnoxious advertisements that we have to see, may be a little interesting. Nevertheless, Facebook Messenger's attempt to collect so much information and take control of our devices is unprecedented and frankly hateful. The fact that more than a billion people have accepted these terms (if the user who downloaded it is actually using it) is an alarming idea of what the future of mobile applications and personal security may hold. As Francis Bacon said: "Knowledge is power."
Those may be in the terms, but I do not think they are implemented, first because there are things that apple does not allow in terms of programming, and secondly, I do not believe that those things are allowed by apple.
I sincerely believe that the article is really insidious because the conditions or terms that we accept when we install the application do not differ from WhatsApp or from Facebook itself. I don't think Apple allows Facebook Messenger to do all that it says and it seems more like a Fake than anything else. How will the network connection change without our permission? How are you going to send SMS without us finding out? The subject of recordings comes naturally to the iPhone in any application that you have the ability to write. Instead, you click on the microphone and record what you want and it, the iPhone, writes the spoken. In WhatsApp there are voice messages from the beginning just like in Messenger. So apparently gunpowder has been discovered. I do not continue because it seems to me a full-blown fake. Apple would not allow an application to do everything that is said in the article. I'm sorry.
Those are the conditions we accept, whether we like them or not. Another thing is that in the end you use each and every one of them, but we are giving you permission to do so. What is certain is that any other application such as WhatsApp also makes us accept very similar conditions, not to mention many other applications. All this only makes one thing clear: no one reads the conditions before installing an application.
As Luis comments, nobody reads the conditions before installing the application. I have not invented anything, you just have to read the terms of use of the application. Obviously it is very likely that they will not use all of them, but if they want they already have the user's authorization to do so without any problem.
Hello Ignacio: Sorry to disagree with what you say in your article.
The issue of Facebook Messenger does not concern me. The conditions that we sign both in Messenger and in other similar programs are generic. Some do not read them and others do.
In fact, for example, that an APP sends SMS without your permission is not possible on the iPhone but it can happen on Android, be careful. That is a reality that today is unquestionable in Apple products. (OS X and IOS. Vgr. IMac, Mac, iPhone and iPad)
In fact, of the things that the acceptance conditions say, some need the user's permission and others simply cannot be done with the user's permission on the iPhone and iPad because Apple precisely does not allow it on their devices or on their systems. operational.
I reiterate that in the Samsungs «Androideros» (I do not say it with a derogatory spirit) it is something else and also in the iPhones with jailbreack. But who can jairbreack an iPhone and what for?
An example of an application that sends SMS without my consent is WhatsApp every time I restore my phone and install all the applications again, it always sends in SMS without notifying me to the UK to confirm the service. Every time I restore the device from scratch, I have to pay a f ****** sms.
Regarding the Jailbreak, iOS is and works very well, but thanks to Jailbreak we can customize it to add functions that make it easier for us to work with it. I particularly only have two tweaks installed. There are people who install everything they see, but with Auxo 2 and Activator the iPhone changes a lot.