My suggestion: If you
have messenger on your phone delete it. Then re-download it and read the terms
of agreement.
This is sheer lunacy.
Also for those who didn't know this one, check out this video. This news is
actually about 5-7 years old. Notice what the government has made cell phone
makers do now? Notice you can't take the battery out?
Cell phone users who
attempt to install the Facebook Messenger app are asked to agree to terms of
service that allow the social networking giant to use the microphone on their
device to record audio at any time without their permission.
As the screenshot
below illustrates (click to enlarge), users are made to accept an agreement
that allows Facebook to “record audio with the microphone… at any time without
your confirmation.”
The TOS also
authorizes Facebook to take videos and pictures using the phone's camera at any
time without permission, as well as directly calling numbers, again without
permission, that could incur charges.
But wait, there's
more! Facebook can also “read your phone's call log” and “read data about
contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you've
called, emailed or communicated in other ways with specific individuals.”
Although most apps on
Android and Apple devices include similar terms to those pictured above, this
is easily the most privacy-busting set of mandates we've seen so far.
Since the vast
majority of people will agree to these terms without even reading them, cell
phone users are agreeing to let Facebook monitor them 24/7, green lighting the
kind of open ended wiretap that would make even the NSA jealous.
Other app companies
are also requiring you to allow them to approximate your location, send SMS
messages from your phone that cost you money, read your contacts, read your
phone status and identity, get “full network access” to your communications (in
other words listen to your phone calls), modify or delete the contents of your
USB storage, and disable your screen lock (the 4 digit code that
password-protects your phone).
As we have previously
highlighted, embedded microphones in everything from Xbox Kinect consoles to
high-tech street lights that can record private conversations in real time
represent the final nail in the coffin of privacy as the ‘Internet of things’
becomes a part of our daily lives.
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