• by Ray Schultz , March 22, 2018

The Better Business Bureau has joined the chorus of voices reacting to the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal.

In an announcement issued Thursday, the BBB states: “In light of the recent revelation that Cambridge Analytica allegedly mined personal information from more than 50 million Facebook users, the Better Business Bureau is again reminding consumers that what they share online can be used for illegal or unethical reasons.”

The BBB warns: “Social media quizzes – especially popular on Facebook – seem innocent enough. But taking the quiz might mean you are giving away more about yourself than you originally thought, and may extend to your Friends, as well.”

It continues that “these quizzes ask seemingly silly or useless questions, but hackers can use that information to penetrate your social accounts and gain access to your personal information or the information of your friends and family.”

Khristian Ibarrola, of Inquirer.net states: “Once answered, hackers can easily hijack personal accounts and use them to lure in more victims,” according to the BBB.

The BBB advises consumers to:

- Be skeptical and take quizzes only from trusted brands.

- Adjust privacy settings and limit sharing of personal information. 

- Remove personal details from your profile, and don't share your phone number or home address in social media. 

- Don’t accept friend requests from unknown individuals.

Cambridge Analytica allegedly used the personality quiz app thisisyourdigitallife to harvest data on Facebook users, MediaPost has reported.