a third - party application running on a client device sends a request for a user &# 39 ; s profile information to a local social networking application running on the client device . the local social networking application sends to the request to the social networking system , receives the requested information from the social networking systems , and provides the requested information to the third - party application . the third - party application uses at least a portion of the requested information to personalize its content for the user . in this way , the third - party application has a simple mechanism for incorporating personalized content for the user based on social information , without requiring the third - party application itself to maintain or even have access to the user &# 39 ; s social information .