Let's analyze! First, some examples (please, no-clicky on the links!!!):
- AMAZING ! i cant believe that you can actually see who is viewing your profile!I just checked my top 10 viewers and Im Shocked my Ex is still viewing it!! You can also see here : http://bit.ly/e0fev5
- wow just saw my total facebook views and top stalker: Girls- 6,938 Boys- 1,239 some people cant stay off my fb lol ... see whos stalking ur page asap lol http://tiny.cc/awdrd
- Woah... I have spent 157 hours logged in to facebook. You can see how much you\'ve been logged in - http://bit.ly/f1jwee
Do you see the pattern here?... Let me give you some hints!
- The Facebook terms and conditions clearly state that there's no way to see who is visiting your profile etc., and that any app that claims it can do this is 1) violating those terms, 2) spamming, 3) in search of access to your list of friends, and 4) showing fake results because they can't track these things!!
- You see it appearing on your friends' lists a lot coming from the same person as a wall message - it's because that ignorant fellow actually clicked on it and followed all the steps there, and gave it permission to post on his/her behalf!
- You see a generic message that starts with an exclamation to attract your attention: 90% of times... yes, you guessed correctly: SPAM!
- You see short links (like bit.ly/asdf1234 or tiny.cc/z1y2x3) that you click and they take you to some page that looks like Facebook but has a different address, and maybe tells you that you were logged off and you should log in again? Well, lemme tell ya' - when you type your password in that box it's the last thing you do before the app takes hold of your account...
- You see a video with a link like "WOW, I can't ever look at this X person in the same way after seeing this video..." - need I say that you should NOT click on the video, or if you do happen to click it, you should NOT be taken to another page, and/or forced to log in to ... "Facebook", again?
- The application is asking you to send this to all your friends before you can continue... Did you know that they actually have ABSOLUTELY NO WAY of tracking whether or not you sent it to any of them?... Unless your friends also click on it!
Ok, well, that's the pattern... :) Next time you see something like this, hopefully you will recognize it and stay away. But even for normal links, from good applications, there are some simple and easy pieces of advice we can all follow in order to be a little bit safer:
- The rule of third-party vetting: If your friends genuinely comment on a link and say that it's nice and worth following, it's probably safe to click even if it's a short link from bit.ly or other services
- The rule of third-party confirmation: if you receive a link / wall post / video from one of your friends, and you're not sure whether or not it's some spam, the easiest way to make sure is to just write a message to that friend and ask: "did you really send me this, or is it spam?"... Of course, if you have 1000+ friends in your list, you can't do that with every messsage you get on your wall - but then again, you wouldn't have to, only a fraction of the messages you get are potential scams or spam.
- The rule of address checking: if you're logged-out of Facebook and asked to log in again, take a look at the browser's address bar to make sure you're still logging in to http://facebook.com and not some fake, phishing page.
- The rule of skipping a step :-) This one's the one I use the most, since I'm going to great lenghts not to spam my friends! Next time an application you're just curious to try shows you a message like "Invite all your friends to get access to my other functioins" - maybe with detailed instructions on what to copy/paste in the address bar to make sure you select ALL your friends - well... just search for the tiny, almost invisible, link or button that says something like "Skip this step", and click it! How much do you want to bet you still get access to those things? :) I don't know why you'd want to, but hey - it's your choice - just DON'T SEND IT TO ME!
- The rule of "better safe than sorry": if you're just dying of curiosity to open a link and see what's behind it, but you're not sure if it is spam or not, there's a simple way to avoid security issues: first, install and/or open a second browser that you'r'e just using once or twice a year (for instance, if you're normally working in Firefox or Chrome, you probably also have IE on your computer but you don't use it); next: go to facebook .com and make sure you're logged out of it; third, copy/paste the link from your Facebook account in your every-day browser, into this one for testing, and hit Enter... since it has no way to interact with Facebook while you're not logged in, it whould be safe to open it - again, if it asks you to log in, just DON'T! You've satisfied your curiosity, you saw what's behind that link, no need to compromise your safety by going any further...
- The rule of reporting an app: in case you see something on your profile or news feed, that you're pretty sure is spam, click on the X button on the right, and then Report as spam. This way, you achieve 2 things: first and foremost, that app won't ever appear on your profile again to bother you! Second, if there are enough spam reports, Facebooks takes notice and investigates that app, eventually shutting it down if it is indeed spam.
- Finally, the rule of NO-CLICKY! If you're not sure about a link or application, and you have no easy way to find out if it's genuine or spam, just... forget about it. Simply, DON'T CLICK! Move away, read other posts, visit your friends' Walls and ask them how they've been, play a game, shut down your computer and go for a walk, read a book... Just don't click on it :)
Well, I really hope this helps and that i'll see less and less spam on my Facebook wall in the future :)
UPDATE! If you want to see which applications are causing you problems on Facebook, and remove them or lower their permissions, you can login to your Facebook account and then access the link http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications to edit the application with access to yout profile. It's even easier since they're listed in the order in which they last interacted with your profile (this way if you see that you've unwillingly sent spam through wall posts or chat messages, you'd know to check the applications at the top first). Then, find that bada$$ app you let loose on your poor Facebook profile, and remove it as soon as possible!
