Ever wanted to see who’s looking at your facebook profile page? Now you can. Or so the makers of the new Stalker Check app claim.
I installed it tonight and went through a number of reactions in the span of a few minutes. Initially there were no surprises. The people I interact with the most—and therefore who would show as posting to my wall frequently through comments, gifts, etc.—were ranked at the top of the list.
Then suddenly my hidden stalker wanted more. Just how many times had my top ‘stalkers’ been on my profile? Alas, I was quickly disappointed. Stalker Check only shows the ranking of your profile posters, but not the actual number of times they’ve come to stare dreamily at your profile pics or the number of times they’ve almost posted a death threat, but changed their mind at the last second. In fact, Stalker Check appears to do none of those things and states the following about ‘how we do it’.
"About Stalker Check
For privacy reasons, this app only lists users who have interacted with your profile at least once during your friendship (e.g. by writing on your wall, or liking something). Real stalkers (the creepy kind) are protected by Facebook Privacy, and will never be revealed, by this or any other app."
In other words, Stalker Check doesn’t appear to track page views, but rather keeps track of the clicks on your profile page only. So you can look all you want, but as long as you refrain from ‘touching’ a friends page, you’ll stay under the Stalker Check radar.
Feeling a bit duped, I was about to close and uninstall the app, when I noticed another button at the top left of my screen; it said simply ‘My Friends’. I clicked it and was given the option to choose a friend and then view their most active profile posters. It was kinda cool, but made me feel dirty at the same time.
And so I uninstalled Stalker Check.
My friends are safe from my prying eyes even if I’m not safe from theirs (I’ll still show up in their stalker list), though I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt that they won’t go snooping around on my profile. The verdict, for now, is that Stalker Check appears to be mostly a novelty at the moment.
However, it’s drawing much skepticism and even outrage from users who know Facebook’s policy of ‘Recent activity will never be shown about whose profile you view’ and expect them to adhere to that.