Platform Update: Facebook Lets Developers Ask a User for Their Address, Phone Number in the Graph API
In another part of its effort to become the main artery for social data, Facebook is now allowing developers to ask a given user for their physical address and phone number within the user object of the Graph API. This information, announced as part of this week’s developer blog post update, helps anyone from game developers to mail and phone marketers reach directly to where users are at all times.
Because it’s so sensitive, Facebook requires developers to ask for a separate set of permissions within the main “Request for Permission” interface. Now developers can build applications that leverage this new access to user data, though note that developers can only be granted access to the address and mobile phone number of the user authenticating the application – not that user’s friends as well.
Given this new sharing option, users should be even more careful about reading what they see on the permissions page, rather than just clicking through. While quick sharing makes for a more seamless user experience, we could see Facebook itself providing an additional prompt asking users to confirm that they want to share this information, in order to help prevent accidental sharing.
This change to the Graph API will enable the development of a new generation of mobile and location-based applications.
The other piece of news from the post this week: Facebook has added a long-requested way to subscribe to the “edge.remove” to track when a user unlikes a page. This will Page admins immediately recognize if something they’ve done, like post a controversial status update, is causing users to unsubscribe. Facebook recently added an easier way to unlike Pages through a button on news feed stories, so admins should subscribe to “edge.remove” for real-time data on user departures.
January 15th, 2011 at 8:33 am
Your new profile sucks and it’s BULLSHIT that we were forced like communist followers to have to submit to this change over with no voice as to whether we wanted to keep our existing profile.What you did was wrong and it SUCKS..
January 15th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
If facebook had done a halfway decent job of protecting its users from rogue apps, this would bother me a lot less. As it is, I think this feature is just going to be abused.
January 16th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
[...] Inside Facebook] | Escrito por Hector [...]
January 16th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Just another way for zynga to annoy it’s users.
January 16th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
[...] Some may have thought that Facebook would have ‘calmed it a bit’ during 2011. If you were one of those people, think again. I shudder to think what’s coming next. But like France’s amazing ability to be complete and utter total bast*rds in Africa, I have a secret admiration for their total disregard of plebs and proles. Look at that ‘teeny weeny’ “Access my contact information” ….. can’t be arsed? Aha Facebook thought so too :p Amplify’d from http://www.insidefacebook.com [...]
January 17th, 2011 at 9:54 am
[...] Tal y como se muestra en la imagen, de la misma forma que antes se pedía autorización para compartir otros datos, ahora se pide para estos dos datos tan sensibles, según informa InsideFacebook. [...]
January 17th, 2011 at 10:56 am
[...] has begun allowing developers to ask users for their mobile phone number and home addresses in a move that could show the best and worst of the Facebook Platform. Most critics have [...]
January 25th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
[...] aeg tagasi astus Facebook jällegi privaatsusreha otsa, lubades rakendustel ligipääsu inimeste kodusele aadressile ja telefoninumbrile. [...]