New Anonymous Facebook Login Hides Info, But Not From Facebook

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.

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Facebook's privacy policies have changed a lot over the last decade. As the company has grown up, it's given users more and more options to control what information they chose to share. And this week, Facebook rolled out another new tweak. It's offering user more control of what information it shared with third-party apps. It includes an option to sign into those apps anonymously.

But as NPR's Steve Henn reports, the effect of all consumer control may be a bit counter intuitive.

STEVE HENN, BYLINE: It should come as no surprise to anyone at this point that many of Facebook billion-plus users are sometime a bit anxious about how their information is being used. Even Facebook's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has gotten that message.

MARK ZUCKERBERG: And over the years, one the things we have heard just over and over again is that people want more control over how they share their information, especially with apps. And they want more say and control over how apps use their data.

HENN: And this week, at Facebook's developers' conference, he told the world he was listening.

ZUCKERBERG: And, you know, we take that this really seriously.

HENN: Facebook is more than a website. It's become the connective tissue that holds the social Web together. One of the main ways this happens is when developers allow you to sign into their website or using your Facebook account. In this way, they get at Facebook data like pictures or a list of your friends, which can help them power their apps. And you get a really easy seamless way to sign up.

But sometimes this process creeps people out.

ZUCKERBERG: And the reality is if you are using an app that you don't completely trust or that you're worried my spam your friends...

HENN: You are less likely to sign on. And that's because you don't have much control over how your data is going to be used. You play by the developers rules or not play at all. But over the coming year that is going to change. Soon when you sign on...

ZUCKERBERG: You are going to be able to easily change line by line what you share with this app.

HENN: Facebook is also slowly rolling out a way to sign into apps anonymously. Sound great, right? But Alessandro Acquisti, at Carnegie Mellon University, says there are lots of interesting cultural implications here. He says in some ways, you can think of Facebook as offering the illusion of privacy. He tends to think of Facebook as...

ALESSANDRO ACQUISTI: The silent listener. In a way Facebook was acting as a somewhat silent listener who overhears your conversations with your friends.

HENN: And Facebook will be there watching and listening to what apps you use, as well, even if you've signed on anonymously. So, say, someone logs into a dating app anonymously even though they're married, Facebook is going to know.

Interestingly, Acquisti says in research he's found that giving users these kinds of controls makes them more likely to share more sensitive stuff. A couple years ago, he gave two groups of people a questionnaire that included some very sensitive questions, like have your tried cocaine. He told both groups they didn't have to answer anything that made them uncomfortable. But one questionnaire was slightly different. At the top it had a box that said: Check here if we can use your answers in our research.

ACQUISTI: And what happened, after we added the check box, was that that particular group became twice, almost twice more likely to actually not just check the box, but answer the more sensitive questions.

HENN: Whether people checked the box or not, just the fact that it was there built trust, and as Facebook has learned: Trust is key.

Steve Henn, NPR News, Silicon Valley. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.