See original article: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2008-11-19-facebook-applications_N.htm
This is a new process planned by Facebook to verify Facebook applications. The verification process costs $375/year or $175 for each application if you’re a non-profit.
“The process is meant to increase users’ trust of applications that are posted on the site and to help developers wanting to build a serious business get more visibility with users.”
So what does verification really do? I’m willing to be proven wrong here, but it seems to me that it’s rather impossible to verify exactly what goes on in the Facebook application’s server. If there is some serious data-mining occurring behind the scenes of a seemingly benign application, how can Facebook verify this? How is Facebook able to use this verification process to protect users? At best, this seems like a poor attempt to protect users. At worst, it seems like a money-grab by Facebook who knows the extreme limitations of the verification process yet hopes to give users a false sense of security.
What does verifying really do? How does it help or protect users? What separates it from just paying Facebook to ‘feature’ your app? If they want to have a pay-to-feature option – then okay, but verifying makes it sound like the app is trustworthy, reliable, etc. and I don’t see how they can do this. In fact, businesses doing data mining and selling information collected from the apps would be happy to pay a fee to make their app seem trustworthy.
The Internet itself is a horde of countless sites, most of them terrible; some of the terrible sites are popular, some of the good sites are popular, and many qualities sites totally unnoticed because they can’t afford to pay for advertising and a SEO specialist. Facebook is like a microcosm of the Internet (with a focus on community and interaction) – with messaging between people, countless applications, groups with discussion forums, etc. Except unlike the Internet it’s proprietary, controlled by the few, difficult to ensure privacy, and a completely uneven playing field. Facebook displays their own adds, promotes their own interests over and above any other content. That’s their prerogative; they run a very successful business and have a right to do so. But this app verification distorts the playing field, giving the advantage to people who can afford it (not to mention the censorship that will happen during this verification process). With all the privacy concerns over Facebook, I’m worried that this verification process with further uneducate users, giving them a false sense of security under the guise of ‘verification’.
Okay, some ideological bias is obviously coming out here :). Maybe my unease over this verification process comes down to my distaste for Facebook in general. To me, it’s become like cell phones and Skype, a socially mandated necessity that compromises privacy and puts information and significant elements of people’s lives into corporate control.
