Facebook “Fan Check” not likely virus, confirmed to be annoying as all get out

Yesterday, I was “tagged” in someone’s Facebook “Fan Check” mosaic.

Because I am the 19th most popular commenter on the tagger’s page, I got no less than seventeen e-mails declaring that someone had commented on a “tagged picture” of me on Facebook. Since everyone knows tagged pics are the most unflattering pictures that can ever be taken of you, this strategy probably works well in getting people to visit the application. It also works well in making me hate Fan Check. (Previously named “Stalker Check.”)

But this morning I woke up to an all-caps missive about how Fan Check was a virus, and as we all known, status messages like this are a form of virus themselves. Soon “Facebook Fan Check virus” was the #1 search on Google, with worried users thinking something was up after those spammy e-mails. But is the app dangerous?

Dangerously stupid? Yes, certainly. The app has been offline for most of today, sparing us from the deluge of unwanted e-mails. But PC World speculates that the app isn’t down for some virus-related reasons- rather just for being a deceitful, spammy waste of time:

For example, Facebook members seem to get tagged in a Fan Check album of some sort without their permission and without even having installed the application. That photo-tagging action is then broadcast to their friends’ profiles via a thumbnail image titled “Fan Check Photos” with a message saying that the person in question has been tagged. This would appear to be a type of deceitful and spammy notification strategy that Facebook has tried to clamp down on because it annoys and confuses its members.

However, one thing that can infect your computer is searching for information on the Facebook Fan Check virus. As they do, malware pushers have seized on your collective fervor and have attached some pretty nasty stuff to pages purporting to give you the lowdown on the “virus.” Clicking on some of the most popular links will hijack your browser window with a fake virus and malware scan you can’t stop. So, searching for whether Fan Check is a virus can give you a virus. Doubly annoying.

And as always, regardless of what your friends say, Fan Check can’t tell you who looks at your profile or how much, as Facebook forbids that kind of snooping. So if you were considering adding the Fan Check app for that reason, please spare us all. It’s not going to work and it is going to annoy the pants off all your friends.