Facebook Dumps Secret Crush - Social networking giant Facebook dumps the popular Secret Crush application because it also installs Zango ad-related spyware, bombarding unwiting users with annoying popup ads.
The reason that Facebook dumps Secret Crush is that the estimated one million Facebook users of the third-party application were not adequately warned that popup ad software was being installed on their computers along with the application.
Nefarious spyware giant Zango, also known as Hotbar and 180 Solutions, settled an FTC lawsuit in 2006 for $3 million over similar unwanted installations of ad-serving software.
Facebook posted a notice on their site today that ”Facebook is committed to user safety and security and, to that end, its Terms of Service for developers explicitly state that applications should not use adware and spyware. We have contacted the developers and have disabled the Secret Crush application for violating Facebook Platform Terms of Service.”
Secret Crush was developed by a company called Mobile Computing that is still allowed to develop new Facebook applications.
Researchers at online security company Fortinet describe “Secret Crush” as a “malicious Facebook Widget actively spreading on the social networking site which ultimately prompts users to install the infamous “Zango” adware/spyware.”
Facebook members were constantly bombarded with messages that ”One of your friends might have a crush on you!”
But, users who actually installed Secret Crush instead found that they had to convince five of their own friends to install Secret Crush before they could find out the identity of their own original Secret Crush.
Unleashing those annoying spammy invites on all your friends never did reveal a Secret Crush to the originating Facebook user.
Instead, they found that the person who “crushed” them was just trying to find their own original “crush.”
Why they weren’t trying to find Facebook Wendy (the lovely lass who lost her digital camera loaded with racy pics) instead, we’ll never know.
And that’s the latest news on Facebook dumps Secret Crush.
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January 7th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
[...] SlickRick23 wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFacebook Dumps Secret Crush - Social networking giant Facebook dumps the popular Secret Crush application because it also installs Zango ad-related spyware (spyware removal) (spyware removal), bombarding unwiting users with annoying popup ads. … [...]