If you use the Facebook app and enable contact syncing, it prompts:
"If you enable this feature, all contacts from your device (name, email address, phone number) will be sent to Facebook and be subject to Facebook's Privacy Policy, and your friends' profile photos and other info from Facebook will be added to your iPhone address book. Please make sure your friends are comfortable with any use you make of their information."
I work at Facebook, but I am not involved in that team and from my perspective it looks like an honest attempt is being made to help people understand what is going to happen, and I don't see any "getting away with it without getting caught" going on.
I'm totally with you on how much of a problem this could be when someone is actually attempting to be malicious. I think Apple should probably protect the contact database in a similar way to how it protects your location from applications. It doesn't prevent an app that ostensibly is using your contacts for some good purpose (and getting your permission) from using it for bad ones, but it does reduce the likely distribution/success of the application.
The increasing prevalence of warnings and confirmations when signing up for a site, when downloading/connecting applications, or when enabling features has encouraged people to skim these attempts to educate them about what it going to happen without reading them. Trying to effectively communicate and emphasize the importance of the information contained in warnings and confirmations is a growing problem that I don't think anyone has cracked just yet, but I know people are concerned about it and working on it.
"If you enable this feature, all contacts from your device (name, email address, phone number) will be sent to Facebook and be subject to Facebook's Privacy Policy, and your friends' profile photos and other info from Facebook will be added to your iPhone address book. Please make sure your friends are comfortable with any use you make of their information."
I work at Facebook, but I am not involved in that team and from my perspective it looks like an honest attempt is being made to help people understand what is going to happen, and I don't see any "getting away with it without getting caught" going on.
I'm totally with you on how much of a problem this could be when someone is actually attempting to be malicious. I think Apple should probably protect the contact database in a similar way to how it protects your location from applications. It doesn't prevent an app that ostensibly is using your contacts for some good purpose (and getting your permission) from using it for bad ones, but it does reduce the likely distribution/success of the application.
The increasing prevalence of warnings and confirmations when signing up for a site, when downloading/connecting applications, or when enabling features has encouraged people to skim these attempts to educate them about what it going to happen without reading them. Trying to effectively communicate and emphasize the importance of the information contained in warnings and confirmations is a growing problem that I don't think anyone has cracked just yet, but I know people are concerned about it and working on it.