Word Cloud (Photo : Twitter )
Facebook users who complete the Your Most Used Words app's pop quizzes have created a security threat to their social network account through access to the word cloud software. A United Kingdom company has discovered that the software can dig up a lot of personal information including the user's name, birthdate, hometown, Likes, images, friends list, and IP address.
That is not all. The app also collects the user's education details, browser, and language, according to Gizmodo.
Facebook quiz apps usually ask users to authorize linking to the social media giant. Some of them even allow people to select which data they are OK about sharing.
Vonvon is the word cloud app's producer. Based on the company's privacy policy, it can legally use the quiz-taker's data, store the digital data on any server on planet Earth, and even sell the information.
The privacy policy also states that the company does not share personal information with third parties unless it first notifies the Facebook user. However, it then states that the privacy policy is one way it does that.
Vonvon CEO Jonghwa Kim told Engadget that the new Korean startup company does not store personal info for other purposes besides creating the word cloud. He claimed it sends no data to its servers.
Facebook users can change their account settings to limit third-party app access. However, it is a catch 22, as the app then does not function, according to Engadget.
It can be tough for Facebook users to avoid taking the Your Most Used Words pop quiz and those of similar apps when all their friends are having fun answering the questions. One option is to ignore them. However, before taking the quiz users should learn exactly which data third parties can access.
Here are the 20 most used words on the Internet:
