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A new Facebook Connect application has spread quickly around the Facebook social graph by tagging all of a user’s friends who have the same zodiac sign. This is the latest in a series of new photo tagging applications which have been spreading like wildfire across the site. The Facebook platform lets users easily tag their friends but by prompting users for unrestricted posting and unrestricted photo upload permissions, the application is able to spread like crazy. It leads me to wonder whether Facebook will begin cracking down on these types of apps.
The way Facebook’s new permissions system is that users must specifically grant permission to applications to make any extended actions on behalf of the user. The issue with this application is that it then takes advantage of those users who granted them permission to spam all their friends. Don’t want to approve the application for its permissions? That’s fine! This “friendly” application will then send you to a page within Facebook which is filled with aggressive IQ quiz ads.
This aggressive application has successfully grown to over 8.4 million users. While most users don’t realize that the application is spamming the profiles of all their friends, it’s clear that the application has reached critical mass. A large percentage of my friends have now been tagged in photos by friends they don’t event have strong ties to. This form of growth through loose connections makes me think the Friend.ly application has crossed a line.
Has the application violated Facebook’s terms of service? As far as I know they haven’t but it’s clear that the photo tagging feature is the new way to quickly attract millions of users. Friend.ly isn’t the only application to aggressively tag users. Earlier this week I wrote about the All my Friends! application creating large amounts of spam. There’s now another application called Friends Character which is using a similar strategy and now has over 2.5 million monthly active users.
While the basic idea behind the applications are clever, this automated form of tagging ends up generating a lot of noise which degrades the overall Facebook user’s experience. Clearly this is just my opinion though and millions of users appear to be thoroughly enjoying some of these apps. The friend.ly app for instance has be rated 3.8 out of 5 stars although that appears to be dropping quickly.
Just today, numerous users have rated the application 1 out of 5 stars due to it tagging friends in photos without a user’s explicit permission. My guess is that Facebook will begin cutting down on these applications quickly but not before millions of users are touched or “tagged” by them.
Hope they crack down on crap like this. creates too much noise on the network… uggh
John
@jobrieniii
Nick– I saw earlier today that your Facebook page was overtaken by the Pisces monster… I hope they’ll put a stop to this crazy nonsense! Ridiculous!
I totally agree and have this spam coming in from all my friends - most of my “Highlights” bar is this crap (friend.ly and various copy cats).
I don’t care if it’s against anything within the TOC, or not - this is underhanded and playing on the trusting nature of honest people.
It destroys the environment for future developers and their applications by reducing the trust users had. So, the next time my app pops up an “Allow Authorization” dialog, will the user trust my app enough to allow access? Even if the access I am requesting is 100% benevolent?
You guys don’t understand. This application is immensely clever, and all of its million of users are supporting it because they understand this merit.
This is nothing like the useless junk that permeates Facebook. This is the future of social networking, allowing people to come together with an ease and efficiency that leaves previous forms of communication behind in the dust.
I understand your initial trepidation, but the same thing happens with every big paradigm shift. I wonder how many one star votes Facebook’s newsfeed would have gotten if users could vote. This is the future. Learn to love it.
I notice that friend.ly doesn’t appear in any application search results within FaceBook. So how do I block it? how do I hide it?
I’m not going to ‘learn to love it’ unless I’m given the choice whether I want to see it or not.
Alex…just wondering what vested interest you have in spreading that party line propaganda, hmmm?
Friend.ly has another one out there. Something that starts with longest and shortest name in your list. Sounds like they have a small army of programers creating new apps every day.
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Additional_Policies_Governing_All_Applications_and_Developers#10._Notifications_Policy
“The sending of a user-to-user notification, and its content, must be expected by the sending user. If the information contained in the notification would not otherwise be available to the recipient via Facebook, the user who is the subject of the notification must provide explicit consent to the content of the notification. ”
This app is DEFINITELY violating facebook guidelines.
quierohacer algo en esta pagina para monatar fostos en el facebook
Yeah these apps are dreadful. Contrast with an app like this one:
http://apps.facebook.com/sillystatus/tags.php
where you actually get to customise the image, and YOU choose who to tag instead of having it done randomly by the app…
Is there a way to stop these apps from tagging you?
These apps are sooooooo annoying… When they appear in your tagged photo albums just remove the tag by your name and they will disappear from your photos….
I hate this Zodiac Friends thing. Already blocked a couple of friends in order to stop it.
wanna make it i don’t know how
am new tell me how to use this
does anyone know how to find the Profile page for the Zodiac app?
i’ve found the others and blocked them, but when i look at the Friend.ly Zodiac picture that friends have been tagged in, it only lists a site off of Facebook… i don’t know if that’s a violation, but it seems they should have to list their Facebook page…
also, is there way to prevent being tagged?
if we’ve opted out of the facebook API (go to Privacy Settings, then to Applications, then choose the SETTINGS tab, you’ll have to drop all apps to be able to check the Do Not share option) will that stop it? thank you
I was totally dismayed at the number of similar apps and especially the way it blitzed the highlights preventing sight of original photographs and sets but also choking profile and history logs of what people are actually up to. The attraction of this app to the majority is solely that it requires no effort or imagination whatsoever.
This, like so many features of Facbook, crushes individuality and creativity and you needn’t hold your breath that Facebook will put a stop to this- they want to encourage it because the mindset is increase membership and traffic to generate advertising revenue. That is the sole purpose of Facebook - it is no longer the extension of global altruism enabling peers to communicate as it was first envisaged.
Highlights is already a bizarre feature as there seems no logic to what gets to be in them.
The explanation is simple just as there are a whole range of apps that require no thought, effort or originality, quizzes, Farmville , what kind of ***** am I? ( Did you need to ask?? !!!! and are we bothered? Facebook chief appeal is that it costs nothing and provides one of many forums for kids who really have nothing of any worth or depth to communicate and use the place as a boredom breaker. Otherwise they’d just use their phones and text and see it as an extension of games consoles and the virtual worlds they like to hang out in while they find a life of their own.
So much of what is written is of no interest whatsoever to anyone other than a person or persons that an individual knows. But why don’t they stick to texting ? That won’t do as they want to be noticed. Facebook at least offers the prospect of more attention from a greater number of people regardless of whether they have any interest in you , what you do or have to say. Vanity ?
The ad pane top right enables the member to “vote” but when you do, an endless stream of other ads pop up. If only it were possible to hide any item in Highlights that was of no interest and wouldn’t it also be cool if all that dross , the quizzes, the ‘these are my top ten this and that ‘ could be opted out of so you could genuinely customize what you saw in the history stream or what communication appeared on your profile.
I’d be happy to see Facebook going the way that Fotolog went with tiers of membership where people pay in to be able to tailor the interface and customise it so that ads and all this mindless pointless apps never trouble you. Mercifully Facebook hasn’t been destroyed in the way that Fotolog has been- the latter having been flooded by a massive tidal wave of South American teen spammers.
I think it is a virus that is messing up my Facebook page by randomly changing my status and profile pic. Just me?
The app has been removed by facebook, another note is to never allow a site such as access your facebook by pressing the connect button it’s just bad practice
Bitch, bitch, bitch. I swear if I read one more article complaining about a facebook app I’m going to lose it (more than normal).
I believe I was a victum of a virus transmitted through a person requesting to be a friend on facebook. If you don’t know the person do not respond to them.
it’s good but dangerous
You need to send EMAIL to
abuse@facebook.com
and write the following:
Hi,
I have been victim of harassment for many days now by many unauthorized posts to my wall by this application from “friend.ly/zodiac”.
I have searched for “zodiac friend”, “zodiac”, or “zodiac friend photos” in facebook (with selection of application on the left hand side). Even “friend.ly” or “friend.ly/zodiac”, and I get ” no result “.
yet, this is in facebook’s etiquette:
“To block an application, go to the Application Directory and find the application you wish to block. Once found, click on the picture for the application to see its About page. On the About page you will have the option to “Block this Application” on the right side of the screen. ”
This application is going against the facebook platform policy.
Please remove and block all access to it immediately. I expect you will abide by your own policy. I expect nothing less.
Regards,
the app was disabled!
Me gustaria saber como hago para crear el album de fotos del zodiaco
I don’t think it has been disabled…I got tagged again today. There’s so many of these running rampant now. Another one to watch out for is Fan Check. I don’t know if it’s still active but it was two weeks ago.
Please joing the FB group “We are sick of nuisance apps and Facebook must ban them NOW!!!” http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133244678018&ref=mf and hopefully we can get these intrusive apps banned. Thanks!
la mas linda
pues que es super bacano
my friends zodiac signs
how are u
love u all
hiii happy eid for all people
ow do i go about it? ehn?!
I need details of the way out
connect me to scorpion zodiac
i am a taurus and i want to create my own zodiac friend photo that will be in my photo album
post to my wall my own zodiac friend photo
this is us
i am a leo and i want to create my own zodiac friend photo that will be in my photo album
all my friends
yo quiero hacer puedo si o no
quiero hacer uno y no se como
imy zodiac is aquarius ……….
super la aplicacion
cc
my zodiac is leo
aries