According to The Register, Facebook plans to open up members’ inboxes and notifications to developers, drawing fire from security experts as an unacceptable privacy risk.
Facebook published plans to release a notification and Mailbox API in a post on a developers’ forum last month. The development has received little attention since, despite marking a huge shift in how much confidential data software applications on the social networking might be able to access.
Users who sign up to applications that make use of the feature give the green-light for software to scan the contents of messages sent through the social networking website, as Facebook explains…”The Mailbox API allows you to access your users’ messages, once they grant your application the new read_mailbox extended permission. This lets your applications provide an interface for users to view their messages. For example, your application could pop up an alert when the user receives a new message.”
Although I’m kinda security conscious and do go back and revoke applications on a weekly basis that I no longer use, I still use many applications to access Facebook, and this does give me some concern about what more personal information Facebook are going to be giving away.
Source: The Register
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