Facebook Backs Off From Phone, Address Sharing

After a public outcry on Monday, Facebook has temporarily disabled a function that would give developers user addresses and phone numbers. The news came late Monday night, at 11:25 p.m. from Douglas Purdy, director of developer relations, on the Facebook Developer Blog:

Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks.

The Developer Blog isn't a blog for the public, but this particular post seemed to be written as if it were. I'm also sure Purdy's "useful feedback" is a diplomatic way to put the ranting found on many blogs and forums. Also, Facebook is only temporarily disabling the feature and will bring it back in the next few weeks.

As I stated earlier, the only way to make sure user information is kept private is not to post it on one's Facebook profile.

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