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Facebook reverses on sharing user addresses, phone numbers

Facebook pulled a change to a permissions dialogue box that potentially made users' addresses and phone numbers available to app developers.
Written by Edward Moyer, Contributor

On Tuesday, Facebook reversed a change announced on Friday to a permissions dialog box that users see when downloading third-party Facebook apps--a change that potentially makes users' addresses and phone numbers available to app developers.

The tweak was made known to developers of third-party apps Friday night, by way of a post on the Facebook Developer Blog. Basically, when a person starts downloading a third-party Facebook app, a Request for Permission dialog box appears that asks for access to basic information including the downloader's name, profile picture, gender, user ID, list of friends, and more. What's new as of Friday is an additional section that asks for access to the downloader's current address and mobile phone number.

At 2:25 a.m. Tuesday morning, a blog was posted on Facebook's Developer Blog which said:

"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 agree, and 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."

For more on this story, read the original post Facebook tweak reveals addresses, phone numbers on CNET News.

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