Facebook - Better to be called Spambook !!
Friends , after seeing many of my friends compromising their Facebook Accounts I was compelled to write against this annoyance . Nowadays the most popular site in the world Facebook is getting flooded with lots of spams and junks which is a concern if facebook users want to keep their privacy a privacy .....!
Often we receive event invitation "Who has viewed your Profile ? " by our friends to see who views our profile the most .
Well some attend it and some dont depending on how much are they lured to do so . This kind of events are totally spams or it would be better to call them phishing attacks to have an access of your worthy privacy..!
The people who attend such events get caught in the trap, some wait in the queue to be exploited and others flee from the attack due to the knowledge of it being a spam .The one who attends it becomes the secondary source of spamming attack (Creator of the event for his friends !!) . The attender lets the application access his basic profile information , then this event conducts a survey or quiz to access more of his information and finally is sent as an invitation to his randomly chosen contacts . So it spreads just like worms ..!
Also these kind of spams are circulated via Facebook chat messages without the consent of the user .
Why claim it to be a SPAM ???
There is no way the creator of the application "Who viewed your profile the most ? " can track how many people you invite to their group and how many of them actually join, and there is no way they can set it up so that an e-mail is automatically sent to you once you do so. Also there is no way to count how many people actually visit your profile in Facebook . One such Application 'Trakzor' does exist but it need to be installed on both the computer machines in order to count each other's visit .There is no way these applications can be run through embedded javascripts as Facebook has already fixed this bug .
In Facebook’s Developer Principles and Policies (DPP), it specifically states that developers are not allowed to make applications that track profile views: “You must not track visits to a user’s profile, or estimate the number of such visits, whether aggregated anonymously or identified individually” (DPP II.5b). This means any applications that promise tracking profile views are in direct violation of Facebook’s policies.! You can view the Facebook Developer Policies here http://developers.facebook.com/policy/
In fact many have tried to actually track the profiles using javascripts and applications but Facebook immediately fixes those loopholes and so there's no way such applications can stick around !
One more important reason of it being a spam is the redirect links they provide .
One interesting thing to be noticed in their redirect links is ' .tk ' domain which is common in most of the links. This is the top level domain of 'Tokelau' , a territory of New Zealand .! The DOT Tk website provides the free domain registration with .tk . So this domain is easily available though free of cost .!
What if I am trapped ??
One way is to open your Facebook Account and hover to ' Privacy Settings '
In Privacy Settings Window click on 'Edit Settings' .
Now click on ' Remove Unwanted or Spammy App '
Now a list of the applications that access your account is visible . Remove any application like Profilepeeker, ProfileEye or any suspicious looking application by clicking on remove marks .
Another way is to install an addon for mozilla ' FB Purity ' that helps to block such applications . This addon is available here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/fb-purity-cleans-up-facebook/
Lastly dont attend any such events . Report them spam as soon as possible so that facebook removes them . In the future, if you see anything promising a profile tracker or something similar, ignore it, it either doesn’t work or won’t last for much longer. .! HAPPY AND SAFE FACEBOOKING .!!! :)
Friends , after seeing many of my friends compromising their Facebook Accounts I was compelled to write against this annoyance . Nowadays the most popular site in the world Facebook is getting flooded with lots of spams and junks which is a concern if facebook users want to keep their privacy a privacy .....!
Often we receive event invitation "Who has viewed your Profile ? " by our friends to see who views our profile the most .
The people who attend such events get caught in the trap, some wait in the queue to be exploited and others flee from the attack due to the knowledge of it being a spam .The one who attends it becomes the secondary source of spamming attack (Creator of the event for his friends !!) . The attender lets the application access his basic profile information , then this event conducts a survey or quiz to access more of his information and finally is sent as an invitation to his randomly chosen contacts . So it spreads just like worms ..!
Why claim it to be a SPAM ???
There is no way the creator of the application "Who viewed your profile the most ? " can track how many people you invite to their group and how many of them actually join, and there is no way they can set it up so that an e-mail is automatically sent to you once you do so. Also there is no way to count how many people actually visit your profile in Facebook . One such Application 'Trakzor' does exist but it need to be installed on both the computer machines in order to count each other's visit .There is no way these applications can be run through embedded javascripts as Facebook has already fixed this bug .
In Facebook’s Developer Principles and Policies (DPP), it specifically states that developers are not allowed to make applications that track profile views: “You must not track visits to a user’s profile, or estimate the number of such visits, whether aggregated anonymously or identified individually” (DPP II.5b). This means any applications that promise tracking profile views are in direct violation of Facebook’s policies.! You can view the Facebook Developer Policies here http://developers.facebook.com/policy/
In fact many have tried to actually track the profiles using javascripts and applications but Facebook immediately fixes those loopholes and so there's no way such applications can stick around !
One more important reason of it being a spam is the redirect links they provide .
What if I am trapped ??
One way is to open your Facebook Account and hover to ' Privacy Settings '
In Privacy Settings Window click on 'Edit Settings' .
Now click on ' Remove Unwanted or Spammy App '
Now a list of the applications that access your account is visible . Remove any application like Profilepeeker, ProfileEye or any suspicious looking application by clicking on remove marks .
Another way is to install an addon for mozilla ' FB Purity ' that helps to block such applications . This addon is available here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/fb-purity-cleans-up-facebook/
Lastly dont attend any such events . Report them spam as soon as possible so that facebook removes them . In the future, if you see anything promising a profile tracker or something similar, ignore it, it either doesn’t work or won’t last for much longer. .! HAPPY AND SAFE FACEBOOKING .!!! :)
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