Twitter has announced that starting by the end of this month third party apps will have to ask you for permission before they can access your Twitter direct messages. The move will certainly give users a little more control over the data shared with third parties, and it’s always good to be reminded that data you might think is private is actually in the hands of not only Twitter, but also the app developer. But odds are if you download and install a third party Twitter client you expect to include all of Twitter’s features including direct messages, replies, and retweets.
If developers don’t update their apps in the next few weeks it’s possible that you’ll stop seeing DMs in some third party Twitter apps installed on your phone, tablet, or computer.
But I get the feeling that this change isn’t entirely aimed at full-featured Twitter clients such as TweetBot or Seesmic. Instead it may be aimed at services that really don’t need your private messages at all, including services which allow you to post images or shortened links to Twitter such as bit.ly or yfrog.
via Mashable
