Facebook Scam Applications Strike Again

agardina — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:58:03 +0000

You've got to wonder who, if anyone, is approving applications for distribution on Facebook. A far cry from Apple's "deny first, ask later" policy, Facebook seems to have allowed yet another spam application through.

The application is called Photo Comments, and it appears to be a reincarnation of Phetas, an application that made its rounds a few weeks back. Phetas has since been removed, and all notifications generated by the application deleted. Here's how Photo Comments works, and why Facebook needs to start weighing in:

Photo Comments goes viral by notifying you that one of your friends has "commented on a photo of you". The image in the notification looks exactly like Facebook's built-in photo application.
You click the notification and are directed to add the application Photo Comments. Don't, because if you do...
Facebook notifies your friends that you've commented on a photo of them, and the virus/scam spreads further.

Review of Photo Comments average one star, with users saying:

"this thing attacked me, linked to a bunch of adds and is purposefully trying to look like normal picture comments."
"This appears to be a bogus application - possibly virus?"

Facebook is losing a lot of ground. In the past month they have implemented new privacy policies that are as confusing as they are incomplete, and now they have approved (passively or actively) at least 2 spam applications that look and feel just like one of their native apps. Where are they going to go from here?

Update: While Photo Comments & Phetas have disappeared from Facebook's list of applications, as of 2/24, a new one has appeared. "Like", an application that uses graphic elements similar to Facebook's "Like" button, works in exactly the same way as the other spam applications. Interestingly enough, they also seem to have been developed by the same group of people. Caveat, Facebooker!

alyssagardina.com - spam

Facebook Scam Applications Strike Again