Bobble Head

All right how many of you have Facebook Messenger or as I call it Bobble Head?

Facebook Messenger is a new mobile app designed to make it easier for you to talk with your Facebook friends.

Why do I call Facebook Messenger Bobble Head? If you’ve ever seen the app then you’d understand. A small round picture of your Facebook friend appears on your main screen and moves around until you slid it to the bottom of the page letting it disappear, so it is a floating Bobble Head.

Well, I’ve been researching Bobble Head and found out some disturbing information and thought I’d share. 

Please let me know what you think about Bobble Head.                  

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Facebook's Messenger App requires the acceptance of an alarming amount of personal data and, even more startling, direct control over your mobile  device.

The Huffington Post's Sam Fiorella wrote.

Some of the things Messenger can do:

- Change the state of network connectivity

-Call phone numbers without your intervention. This may result in unexpected charges or calls. Malicious apps may cost you money by making calls without your confirmation

-Send SMS messages. This may result in unexpected charges. Malicious apps may cost you money by sending messages without your confirmation

-Record audio with microphone. This permission allows the app to record audio at any time without your confirmation

-Take pictures and video with the camera. This permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation

-Read your phone's call log, including data about incoming and outgoing calls. This permission allows apps to save your call log data, and malicious apps may share call log data without your knowledge

-Read data about your contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific individuals

-Access the phone features of the device. This permission allows the app to determine the phone number and device IDs, whether a call is active, and the remote number connected by a call.

While this may be startling, Facebook claims it needs the information for very specific reasons. For example, if a person wants to send a picture to a Facebook friend then the app obviously needs to access your photos, and if you want to send a voice message then the app would need permission to record the audio.

Still some Facebook users are uneasy with the amount of information the app is requesting and either won't download it or have deleted Messenger. 

Despite the concerns, Messenger has been downloaded over 1,000,000,000 times, the Huffington Post reports.