It was recently announced that Facebook is making significant changes in the ways application developers have access to Facebook user data. According to PCWorld and InsideFacebook, Facebook is changing the privacy features over the next year as a result of a meeting with the Canadian government. The meeting included recommendations from Canada regarding the distribution and acquiring of information by Facebook applications. In response, Facebook will increase the publicity of its privacy features and tighten privacy controls.
So, how does this affect application developers? There are tens of thousands of third-party applications build for Facebook by developers, like Context (but not as cool). Facebook will now begin to require that these developers comply with a new set of permissions. These permissions require the application developers to specify what specific information they want to obtain from users of the application.
After the developers decide what exactly they want to know, they must integrate the detailed information request and allow users to consent to making this information available to the application.
The ultimate goal is to make Facebook members more informed about how applications use their profile information and give them the option to opt out of making this information available to these third-party applications.
What’s most important here is how these changes will affect brands on their endeavors to integrate social media into their marketing plans.
These changes may hamper creative possibilities with any given application, since a simple allow button in the past may need to be replaced with many check boxes or a multi-level permission process. Don’t panic though; it’s not all bad.
First of all, our strategy proposals for recent clients have been far less application focused than in the past. As successive Facebook redesigns have de-emphasized app interaction we’ve found custom applications to be less valuable for certain brands than at times in the past.
Furthermore, brands tend to have higher privacy regulations than small application developers. These changes will allow brands to uphold their privacy standards even on Facebook, while holding small shops to the same standards. This reassurance that the brand is not “out to get” users’ private information may create incentive for more user participation and a more level playing field.
All in all, developers shouldn’t be drastically affected by the new privacy controls and explanations. Applications should only be affected in the permissions. Brands are able to use these new controls to their advantage.
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