Facebook's "Evil Interfaces" 244
An anonymous reader writes "Tim Jones over at the EFF's Deep Links Blog just posted an interesting article on the widespread use of deceptive interface techniques on the Web. He began by polling his Twitter and Facebook audience for an appropriate term for this condition and received responses like 'Bait-and-Click' and 'Zuckerpunched.' Ultimately, he chose 'Evil Interfaces' from Greg Conti's HOPE talk on malicious interface design and follow-up interview with media-savvy puppet Weena. Tim then goes on to dissect Facebook (with pictures). So, what evil interfaces have you encountered on (or off) the Web?"
Two Related Research Papers (Score:5, Informative)
For those interested, there are two related research papers available by Conti and Sobiesk. The first Malicious Interface Design: Exploiting the User [acm.org] was just published this week at the 2010 WWW Conference. The other is from IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine, Malicious Interfaces and Personalization's Uninviting Future [rumint.org]. (PDF)
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:5, Informative)
That doesn't stop 'friends' putting information about you on their profile or tagging photos with your name.
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:5, Informative)
Imagine if I signed a contract that stated I would pay $500 in rent every month. Seven months later I get a letter saying that I owed back rent despite paying my $500 every month. Would it really hold up in court that the landlords had a 'right' to change the contract without notifying their tenants? But that is exactly what Facebook is doing. It is nothing more than online bait-and-switch only worse because generally with bait and switch you know that a change is taking place before you fork over the cash.
Ticketmaster (Score:4, Informative)
Here is what I found reprehensible is that when I choose to not store my credit card information on their site, a pop up window with the their privacy policy pops up. Clearly, if it so important to them that I keep my credit card information on their site, then it stands to reason that they intend to misuse it in some way. Ticketmaster already lied to me about the amount they were going to charge to credit card, who knows what else they lie about. Perhaps I was being enrolled in a club that would charge me $50 a month to have priority access to future purchase opportunities. I don't know. I don't know why they would confuse the user and kill a sale just to get to keep my credit information.
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They shouldn't give us anything (Score:3, Informative)
They provide a free service that you must opt-in to participate.
Right. You know how when the 'new' Facebook had 'better privacy features' that it wanted you to add in everything visible to everyone more or less by default?
If you don't like their terms of service and privacy policy then you should delete your account and stop using it.
Which accomplishes what exactly? You can't use Facebook and Facebook still has your info. You do realize that when you disable your account -everything- is still in the system right?
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:2, Informative)
I actually deleted my facebook profile last week. But that doesn't mean they are actually going to delete my information [...]
More true than you might think.
I played around on Facebook for a few weeks just to see what it was all about but as soon as I heard about their new policies concerning member info, I closed my account. After I finished the process, however, a page popped up letting me know that all I had to do was to use my password to log back on again and everything would be back the way it was.
Apparently, "closing" a Facebook account doesn't do much.
Re:evil interfaces (Score:3, Informative)
That’s nothing. KDE4 even beats Windows ME in this regard.
- Placing and resizing plasmids on the dashboard can literally drive you insane. Because after doing so and releasing the mouse button, you *have* to stay on that element, or the plasmid will reset its position to what it was before. Also it is extremely annoying. If you got two elements right next to each other, the drag bar of the wrong plasmid always keeps popping up right between holding the mouse over the right plasmid, and pressing down the mouse button. But since it is hard to see which one you are now dragging (both drag bars are transparent and looking the same), you are always manipulating the wrong one. It takes elaborate mouse acrobatics to get it to do what you want. So much that I’d strangle the designer, right here, right now.
- There is a nice trick to show the insanity of how Dolphin is set up: Create a fresh user, and start Dolphin for the very first time. Now go to the settings dialog, and change every single option to its very opposite. Then close the dialog, and witness, how now every option is how you would have wanted it to be in the first place. This is not only true for me, but in my opinion for everyone. Try it out yourself! (Attention: Do not forget to also toggle the interface from mouse over selection and single-click execution to single-click selection and double-click execution in the systemsettings.)
- The K menu seems to be designed in the most annoying way anyone of them could imagine: The "tabs" on the bottom move on hover, but since you always move a bit sideways when moving upwards to select a list item, you "select" another tab half the time, and can start again. Then when you chose a program and go into the apps “tab” the next time, and want to go “up”, you have to click on the bar on the left. Which would be nice and fine, if it weren’t for the one pixel between that bar and the display border, where your mouse always ends up, instead of on the bar.
- In all KDE4 programs, all the good options are usually disabled by default. So they appear to seriously and extremely lack functionality. Until you dig up the sometimes well-hidden options and enable them all. Then you can finally actually use them for something useful. Doing that with Kate feels like opening MS Notepad, going to the settings for half an hour, and after closing the dialog, having VIM in front of you. It’s insane.
- The file dialog is an insult in itself. But someone else already wrote a funny and lengthy comparison that already was mentioned on Slashdot in at least two articles.
The only thing that beats that in insanity, is IE6 DHTML programming. But I’m sure half the users here will already have lost hair and taken heart pills because of it. I consider Trident a weapon of soul raping. ^^
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:5, Informative)
Try the contact: delete account page [facebook.com]. I did this a year ago and my account is as permanently gone as it can be. Although, I read that
Re:Less deceptive now (Score:1, Informative)
the java uploader still works just remove &htmlup=1 from address bar or in firefox change your useragent back to 2.0 in about:config general.useragent.extra.firefox
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:5, Informative)
Did you unfriend everyone, delete all messages, pictures, etc?
If no, log back in (your account will likely reactivate automatically) and delete everything out of it, and then DELETE the account.
Note that "deactivation" (the acct will persist indefinitely; reactivate automatically) is different than "deletion"; prime example of an "evil interface".
If delete is truly want you seek, use the delete account link shown below.
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account [facebook.com]
After "Deleting", do not attempt to log in for at least 2 weeks to test it's gone (I'd suggest waiting even longer, such as a month), because otherwise FB may think you're changing your mind and reactivate the account even despite choosing to delete it.
Ron
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, in one word, "Apps".
Furthermore, the privacy settings are not as straight forward as they seem. Case in point is Facebook's new instant personalization feature that will show one's interests to others, including the general public - see link for more details.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/195385/facebook_gets_a_little_too_personal.html [pcworld.com]
On a related note, the number of Facebook friends one has is a risk in of itself ... you may have your privacy settings locked down tight, but what about all your friends?
The more "friends", the more risk of one or more of them being "hacked" and your "private" information being leaked out as a result. Then there's the related issue of "friends of friends", which is in and of itself is seemingly innocuous, but can become a privacy threat when one of them uses the same app you and/or friend does. "Rogue" friends are another privacy hole - very easy for one or more to slip in, especially for members who already have large friend lists.
Ron
Re:evil interfaces (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:3, Informative)
I've been using facebook for a long time now. I know all about zukerberg's questionable past and general sliminess. But tell me this, what lack privacy settings is everybody complaining about? I checked the privacy page just now and it seems I have control over everything I can think of. And the interface is pretty straight forward. Is there something I'm missing? Or are people just having a knee jerk reaction here?
This is a serious question, if there is a important privacy setting missing from facebook I want to know because I use it everyday.
Until about a year ago, you were allowed to set your profile picture and friends list to be viewable by "friends only". Now they're completely public. Same now (starting last week) with Work History, Education History, Current City, Hometown, Likes and Interests. What's worse is that there are options in the privacy settings to make you think you're putting the information for these things in as viewable for "only friends", but it doesn't do anything, and there is hidden text on another page explaining why:
Confirm the Pages that will be on your profile
Uncheck any Page you don't want to link to. Linking to education and work Pages may also create additional Pages, such as for your major or job title. If you don't link to any Pages, these sections on your profile will be empty. By linking your profile to Pages, you will be making these connections public. [emphasis mine, but text from the FB page]
You are about to remove this information
If you don't link to any Pages, the following sections on your profile will be empty:
Notice how much is publicly available now that might not have been in the past? If Joe or Jane Smith thought they were safe from weirdo stalkers because only their friends (and Facebook) knew their place of work, businesses they frequent, etc, then they're in for a shock when they finally figure out that Facebook's final goal is to make all information public including phone numbers, addresses, messages. Why? Because it's Facebook's way to pretend they're not sharing private data with business partners. "We told users that the data is public now; we're sharing public data, which is perfectly legal in every jurisdiction."
Re:Ok, honestly (Score:2, Informative)
I was going to mod you, but decided that a proper reply would be more appropriate.
While I certainly don't disagree with your arguments vis-a-vis the Gold Standard and fiat currency, I feel I should remind you of a few things:
1 - The name of our country is the United States of America. The citizens of this country are properly referred to as "Americans" You wouldn't like it if I called you a "canuck" or a "CA-ian" would you? Using improper terminology to refer to someones nationality is rude and inappropriate. It mars your otherwise insightful post.
2 - We ARE fighting back against the Socialist forces in this country. We are simply following the "4 boxes" method. You remember, there are 4 boxes to use in the defense of Liberty. Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo. They are to be used in that order, and in descending frequency. Right now the Soap box is in Full use. See "The Tea Party Movement" for a high-profile version of that. Come November we will be using the Ballot box to remove those who support Big Government socialism, and if need be, we will make use of the Jury box. After all that the ammo box shouldn't be necessary.
However, if it is needed, my powder is dry.