iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It, really?

I’m back in Toronto for a week and a half for ‘Spring Break’ meaning I get access to Facebook during this time. Why do they call it spring break? I have no idea. But anyways… today’s new feed includes this:

Friend One and Friend Two became fans of iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It.
Yesterday at 7:37 pm Become a Fan

I’m thinking to myself, Really? No way. I really don’t care for any of the pages on Facebook but c’mon, it is a chance for a free iPad. But I know 99.9 percent of the time it’s a scam, but I had to visit anyways. Sound familiar? Phishing for yummy things through e-mail? But I don’t know of any phishing they can do with my Facebook privacy settings if I clicked so I clicked this time. The first page it brings you to is a ‘Become a Tester’ application. For one reason or another it did not load in my browser but that was the first flag. When you visit Facebook applications, it gives it permission to access your ‘public’ Facebook information and anything else that you have made available to them. Anything with privacy set to ‘Everyone’ will be shared and anything else they ask you for and you allow. Since most people don’t read and don’t bother to change their privacy settings they are probably getting the information that they want. Who cares? So it’s your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friends list and pages, no harm, right? Now, your friends are your friends, right? No need to worry about what information you share with them. I don’t know what the old default privacy settings were but if your friend decides to use an application, they can share your information with the application based on what you allow your friends to share. Did you change your privacy settings yet?

Second flag is the Info section. There are two pieces of information:

Founded: 2010

Company Overview: We are a marketing research company, that is looking for people to test products and constantly improve them to bring continuous satisfaction to customers. Currently we are doing a research into Apple products. You can participate to receive and test a free iPad, after the research is done, you can keep it. Currently we are looking for 10,000 testers, so feel free to invite your friends.

Be discerning. A marketing firm that is truly offering 10,000 free iPads should have enough money in their budget to put together an attractive, well-designed, correctly-functioning website and not rely just on Facebook as a marketing tool. I admit, Facebook is a pretty good place to start but it’s not the only place to go. Why do they not have an external website? Or the more obvious, why is there no company information? Founded in 2010? I don’t know what information its asking you for in the ‘Become a Tester’ application but you might want to change your Privacy Settings for future ‘deals’. iPad is the new toy and phishers know that. Read between the lines before you sign your life away for a free iPad. Make sure it is legit then you can sign your life away. =D

Part 1. iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It, really?
Part 2. iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It reacts?
Part 3. iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It: The Sequel
Part 4. iPad Research Center, Steps 2 and 3

Tags: Apple, Facebook, free, iPad, phishing, privacy, scam

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 11:30 and is filed under Security, Surfing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.