How do your favorite social games do on privacy? Privacyscore knows

It's called Privacyscore, a browser add-on that gives each website you visit a privacy rating on a scale of one to 100. Now, it does just the same for Facebook apps and games, which are notorious for bringing up privacy issues. Privacyscore digs deep into why, say, Fruit Ninja Frenzy has a rating of just 50 when users click on the number that appears next to their browser's address bar.

All you need to do is either install the browser plug-in or find Privacyscore on Facebook, which allows users to type in the name of any Facebook app or game and see its privacy rating. Unfortunately, the service doesn't provide much more than a score and some reasoning behind the score, but in some cases that could be all that's needed to make a change.

PaidContent points out that a low Privacyscore rating could shame certain Facebook game developers into making changes to their game, like putting a stop to pawning your account information to advertisers and marketers. Are you still going to play Fruit Ninja Frenzy or Mindjolt Games regardless of their low privacy rating?

Probably, but at least now that skeleton is out of the closet. We couldn't have put it better than paidContent's Jef John Roberts: "This education may help consumers and politicians move beyond privacy hysteria and accept a basic fact: personal information is a commodity used to pay for access to free online services like Facebook."

Would a game's privacy rating keep you from playing it? How do you keep yourself secure while playing Facebook games? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

 

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Source: http://blog.games.com/2012/04/23/facebook-games-privacyscore/

Shanna Moakler Shannon Elizabeth Shannyn Sossamon Paige Butcher