Facebook “Most Used Words” App as Privacy Lesson,  by Adam Levin, Huffington Post Blog

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-levin/facebook-most-used-words_b_8651034.html

If you spend any time on Facebook, no doubt you have noticed an assortment of games or tests meant to reveal something about your personality. Have you ever wondered how much personal information you reveal about yourself, your friends, or  other privacy details? If not, you should, as well as how it could be used to your detriment.

Conversely, if your intent was to obtain research on that individual, how much information did it reveal? -CCE

If you have an account on Facebook, you may have noticed posts featuring a nicely designed cloud comprised of the words your Facebook friends use most often. It’s powered by an app from a company called Vonvon, and it’s been getting a lot of attention this week from consumer privacy experts.

The reason this app has privacy hawks screeching is simple: it grabs an enormous amount of personally identifiable information and private details about Facebook users for way too little in return.

In exchange for a graphically-appealing cloud featuring the names of your children and/or significant others, pets, the stuff of warm-hearted Aws and Ohs — and, let’s not forget, potential answers to security questions that might allow a clever fraudster to execute an account takeover — the app seems to get virtually everything there is to know about you. . . .

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