07-22-11

Privacy: Is There An App For That? (Paper 12)

Jennifer King, University of California, Berkeley
Airi Lampinen, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT
Alex Smolen, University of California, Berkeley

What do Facebook users understand about Applications on Facebook Platform?

Wrote an app on Facebook to conduct a survey. Then seeded from two Facebook accounts.

Survey results

• 98% had heard of apps
• 65% had claimed to have added 10 or fewer apps
• 77% understood that apps were created by both Facebook and other 3rd parties
• 48% were uncertain if Facebook reviews apps
• 28% had never read the “Allow Access” notice where permissions apps use are shown.
• 58% disagree with the statement “I only add apps from people/companies I’ve heard of”
• Asked what parts of your facebook account this survey can access, only one person got the question correct.

Using this data the authors tried to determine what information predicted certain traits.

Adverse Events: Asked questions about adverse events on Facebook such as having someone post something negative about you.

Interpersonal Privacy Attitudes: Older people were more concerned with interpersonal.

Those most knowledgeable: appear to use the apps the same way as other users.

Read the full paper at: http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/soups/2011/proceedings/a12_King.pdf