Facebook has disabled a feature that allowed the social-networking site to share user phone numbers and addresses with app developers.
The move follows a wave of feedback from concerned users after Facebook rolled out a new feature, which allowed developers of apps access to some of its 500 million users’ most sensitive information, including telephone numbers and addresses, last week.
Privacy fears as Facebook gives developers access to user’s sensitive information
The main criticism levelled at the new feature pointed out that Facebook users might share their more sensitive information with app developers without realising they have given permission.
Facebook’s director of developer relations Douglas Purdy responded to criticism in a blog post saying: “Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data.”
“We are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so.
“We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks.”
Purdy also outlined the benefits of the proposed feature, saying “you could, for example, easily share your address and mobile phone with a shopping site to streamline the checkout process, or sign up for up-to-the-minute alerts on special deals directly to your mobile phone.”
