Is NetNanny 6.0 Violating Facebook Terms Of Use?
ContentWatch recently released a new version of NetNanny, which contains a new social networking feature. Here is their feature description:
Parents can easily access and view their children’s social networking activities on commonly used sites like Facebook. Reporting provides details about social networking profiles including friends’ lists, pictures, personal descriptions and more. (Source)
I was curious how this worked, and my curiosity was satisfied when PC Magazine did a review of NetNanny 6.0. (Note: I haven’t personally used NetNanny 6.0, this is all from reading PCMag and NetNanny’s site).
Basically when you attempt to login to Facebook from a computer with NetNanny installed, they force you to install a Facebook application. Doing so gives them access to your profile data through the Facebook Platform API. They then retrieve your Facebook profile information and record it in the NetNanny reports which are later reviewed by the person who installed NetNanny (likely a child’s parent).
Having worked with Facebook for an app we created at InternetSafety.com a few things stuck out to me. The Facebook Platform Terms of Use state:
- You can only show information from Facebook Platform to a user if you retrieved it on behalf of that particular user.
- You can only cache user information for up to 24 hours to assist with performance. The only exceptions are those listed in the Facebook Platform Documentation.
These two terms of service would seem to be in contradiction to what NetNanny does. It likely exposes information from the Facebook Platform to a user other than the user they retrieved it on behalf of. I would also imagine that it keeps records of this data for longer than 24 hours.
It is possible that they have arranged a seperate agreement with Facebook for special terms or use. So what do you think, is this a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use? Would love to hear your thoughts via comments.
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Aaron Kenny
Well, as a parent I kind of appreciate what they are trying to accomplish but the execution is not clean. I got a new PC, installed NN 6.0 and allowed it to do its thing with Facebook. Now Facebook is not working right and I attempted to uninstall NN but it still shows in the program list in “ad/remove programs”. I can’t comment others or update status on my home page and neither can the three other users here. I’ve emailed both NN and FB ….we’ll see if I get a response.
OK THAT IS REALLY STUPID. I UNDERSTAND THAT MY PARENTS WANT ME TO KEEP OUT OF THE BAD STUFF ON THE INTERNET BUT HAVING A APPLICATION ON FACEBOOK IS REALLY STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOW I CANT EVENT GO ON FACEBOOK IT DOSENT LET ME EVEN GET THE STUPID APPLICATION. HOPE NET NANNY GET A LOSS IN ITS BUSINESS OR GET BANKRUPT OR JUST HOPE THE STUPID NANNY DIES.
Very cute Nathan. One day you’ll understand that when you can afford your own computer and internet conection, you’ll be allowed to do as you please- in the mean time, it’s my job to fix comptuers trashed by angry kids visiting games websites, chat sites, and variuous other sources of bad stuff.
Net Nanny has made my job a little bit easier, and the parants I install it for thank me for giving them peace of mind that inappropriate material won’t pop up in front of their 12-year-old.
My mom installed Net Nanny on our computer, and it’s been hassling me from day one. I’m 20 years old, so I’m perhaps a bit too old to be harassed by a content blocker…but anyways! My biggest complaint is the way Content Watch jacks up facebook. I can do virtually nothing but view the “home” page. In my humble opinion, Net Nanny is more hassle than it’s worth!
This filter has the technological sophistication of a retarded clam. It has frozen my Facebook and now forces me to sign in every thirty seconds without reprieve. I’m not into porn, I’m not into game sites, and I’m not a hacker. I am just trying to live my life in the digital world, and this tumor of an application is making it impossible.
its shouldnt also work as a keylogger….. i cant even use facebook anymore.. but of course parents like it cause they can stalk their children
That’s right. We parents have nothing better to do than stalk our kids. We spend all of our time thinking of ways to ruin your life. Why can’t we find something better to do?
It’s a big bad world. Like it or not we, the parents, have been charged with protecting you from it until you have the brains to protect yourself. Net Nanny actually allows my child more freedom. He can now use his computer without me looking over his shoulder all day. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.
If anyone has any positive feedback on how to make the Facebook filter work, I would love to hear it.
BH
I appreciate the fact that my parents want to keep me safe, but even my dad agrees that the way Net Nanny monitors Facebook is pathetic. I actually doubt the application caches information for more than 24 hours, from the way the app prompts me to re-approve it every other minute. The application prevents me from tagging photos and sometimes even from reaching my profile page. Which… defeats the entire point of Facebook.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to fix the glitches that NN causes with Facebook, except by disabling the Facebook monitor. Is that even possible? If it is, I am off to beg my father to do so.
-Rachel Q.
Temporarily you can disable the facebook reporting from Admin logon… sign onto facebook under your childs profile, allow the contentwatch facebook app, and then you can go back and enable reporting.. that might do it.