Facebook Leaks Your Home Address

Your home address and phone number are now part of the information dump third-party developers can obtain through Facebook-powered Website logins and applications.

A new policy lets you authorize applications such as Facebook games and quizzes, and Websites that you log into with your Facebook ID access some of your most personal Facebook data. Facebook announced the changes in a developer blog post on Friday.

Whenever you start using a new Facebook application such as Farmville, a pop-up window appears showing you the details from your Facebook profile the application wants to access.

Now, under the heading “Access my New permissions screen (click to enlarge)contact information,” developers can ask for your home address and mobile phone number if you’ve included this information in your profile. This pop-up window also appears when you use your Facebook ID to log into a third-party website such as PCWorld.com for the first time.

In Facebook’s Friday blog post explaining the expanded permissions, Facebook said users have to explicitly allow access to their address and phone number. The problem is, Facebook’s permissions dialog only gives you two choices: hand over your address or don’t use the product or service you want to access.

That’s really no choice at all. It would be one thing if Facebook gave you the power to deny a developer access to your address and still use the application or Website. But instead, Facebook has given ultimate power to developers who can decide whether to demand your address and phone number.