Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#141

Post by dqv » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

learnstats2 wrote: post #136

dqv wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you asked 1,000 facebook users what they had consented to, they probably would not think that they had consented to that. SomeFacebookApp is requesting permission to do the following: Access my basic information: Includes my name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other information I've shared with everyone. Access my contact information: Current Address and Mobile Phone Number…

The idea of informed consent applied here (which is EU law) gives SomeFacebookApp permission to access the data , like the text you have written says, and nothing beyond that. Once they had accessed the data, they would not [legally] be able to store it, or use it for any purpose. Text like this worries me because it's clear there is some illegal intent - that doesn't mean I agree to the illegal action.

>be able to store it, or use it for any purpose

I didn't even consider that dimension to this issue. The authorization doesn't say anything about whether it will store the data.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#142

Post by chatmasta » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

pmlnr wrote: post #129

dqv wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you asked 1,000 facebook users what they had consented to, they probably would not think that they had consented to that. SomeFacebookApp is requesting permission to do the following: Access my basic information: Includes my name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other information I've shared with everyone. Access my contact information: Current Address and Mobile Phone Number…

That 'list of friends' meant 'oh, and all of these for all of your friends as well, and by accepting this, you tell us they know about this and they accepted it as well' - in which case, your friends, of course, are not even aware of this.

Please don’t post blatantly incorrect statements like this.

An app that gets a friend list of a user does not get the same access to each friend as to the authorizing user. This should be obvious; if I agree to allow an app to post on my wall and access my friends list, it doesn’t mean the app can post on my friends’ walls from my friends’ identities.

The only information the FB API returns about the authorizing user’s friends is data those friends have made publicly available. In fact, the friends even have the option to configure their privacy settings to exclude them from any “friend lists” given to apps.

Honestly it’s ridiculous... nothing was breached in the CA scandal. Users authorized access to their data, and any data of other people was publicly available and authorized by TOS or (admittedly opt-out) privacy settings.

If you want to stay private online, maybe don’t use a service with the singular business model of monetizing your data.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#143

Post by oneeyedpigeon » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #123

downandout wrote: post #24

"...defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent..." The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to ag…

> When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to agree to allow whatever special permissions the developer is asking for. As for friend data that apps may have access to, when you sign up for and use Facebook, you agree to the terms and conditions, which allow this behavior. So it depends on what you mean by consent, and whether you want to…

In fact, I can demonstrate that Facebook has the wherewithal to explicitly determine that I haven't read their TOS, yet chooses not to do so. I would argue that construes some kind of acceptance that the TOS are unenforceable. IANAL, and I'm not aware of that argument being attempted, but I'd quite like it to be.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#144

Post by dfxm12 » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

an4rchy wrote: post #8

Can any lawyers summarize the actual lawsuit? What do these investors want exactly, more money? The stock price went up by any measure, from Feb 3, 2017 to Mar 19, 2018, so it can't be compensation for that. Unless they are willing to give those gains back?

IANAL, but I think the key phrase from the article is this:

"The suit would represent people who bought shares of Facebook from Feb. 3, 2017, when Facebook filed its annual report and cited security breaches and improper access to user data, through March 19.

Investors may be able to sue Facebook successfully if they can show the company induced them to invest based in part on false, misleading or incomplete information regarding practices that might have averted the user privacy issues, Robbins said."

The fact is, Facebook knew about the voter-profile harvesting. The question is, were they legally supposed to disclose it publicly and did anyone invest in Facebook under the false pretenses created by Facebook choosing not to disclose it.

It's kinda narrow and it is very hard to prove why someone chooses to invest in a company. I doubt this get much traction. I also think it sets a scary precedent, unless the plaintiffs can prove Facebook covered this up with an intention to lure potential investors (like a memo from Zuck stating as such).

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#145

Post by dfxm12 » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

beedogs wrote: post #31

I'll truly never understand the people who defend Facebook to the death on here.

On the one side, you have Facebook. On the other, you have lawyers trying to bring a questionable suit and wealthy investors upset that their portfolio's value went down slightly short term.

This is not the thread to get sanctimonious about people defending Facebook.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#146

Post by icebraining » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #124

Xylakant wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not how it works. Apps could for example request access to all messages. Let's make that a physical world example: I write you a letter that contains private details. Are you free to share this letter with third parties? The established legal precedent is clearly "no, not at all." Another example: I allow you to peek into my diary. I shared my private thoughts with you. Are you now allowed to go out and t…

That's just not how it works Actually, that is how it works. Unless there is an NDA in place between you and I, I can share anything you choose to share with me, especially in the context of a social network where we both agreed to and are bound by the same TOS where we authorized exactly this kind of sharing.

In what jurisdiction? That's not true in the EU (even pre-GDPR), where Facebook also operates.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#147

Post by wu-ikkyu » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #138

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were insider trading thats what I would say too. It is tax deductible.

I think you have to give it away before you declare it on your taxes.

It's a convenient loophole to "give it away" to your own organization.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#148

Post by bunderbunder » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

JimmyAustin wrote: post #99

bunderbunder wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern approach to consent in these things arguably immoral, and indisputably awful. Most adults simply don't have the ability to understand the dense legalese that these contracts are written in, so they don't. Asking people to take an hour or two to properly read and digest it just to sign up for a website is ridiculous, and expecting them to actually do so is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie.

The provision that allows this is ~460 words into the TOS, and is written in pretty easy to understand english. At some point you need to hold yourself accountable for agreeing to this stuff.

From their TOS:

"... you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License)"

I would expect the implications of that provision to be inscrutable to someone who doesn't have at least some familiarity with IP law. Techies tend to have that background, because software licensing is such a big factor in open source software. But I would bet that if you go out and survey people off the street about what that's saying, very few would anticipate that it means, "We can sell your data to anyone we want, including exporting it to places where your local privacy laws may not apply, and they get to do whatever they want with it, including selling it to still other people." Especially in light of the (misleading, if you're interpreting it in terms of vernacular English instead of legalese) statement that, "You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook," that opens the section.

Expecting most people I know to reliably all of the relevant implications for their privacy out of that saucer full of tea leaves is, to put it bluntly, bullshit.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#149

Post by icebraining » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #103

vanilla_nut wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how this comment is at all constructive to the situation at hand. What personal bias are you talking about here? Would it really be that hard to elaborate? Instead of acting like you're better than the grandparent poster, it would be far better to either a) engage him in a conversation or b) not comment at all.

Constructive conversation on certain topics is sometimes not possible when in a forum that leans too far to the right or the left. There is a common mentality among many people where they know they are right, such that no response to differing opinions is even necessary, a downvote will do (which is doubly useful, because it censors the downvoted person for some period of time). And if you do not support the narrativ…

The problem with your previous comment is that it's not even clear from what are you dissenting.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#150

Post by mistermann » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #149

mistermann wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constructive conversation on certain topics is sometimes not possible when in a forum that leans too far to the right or the left. There is a common mentality among many people where they know they are right, such that no response to differing opinions is even necessary, a downvote will do (which is doubly useful, because it censors the downvoted person for some period of time). And if you do not support the narrativ…

The problem with your previous comment is that it's not even clear from what are you dissenting.

Fair enough, but it wouldn't have made any difference. Disagreement with this particular aspect of the local culture will get you a downvote, not a discussion. Any discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture, to teach you the "facts" of "how things are".

Jonathan Haidt has studied this psychological phenomenon quite extensively and in my opinion it does a good job of explaining the recent unusual behavior of the public, it's a shame no one's interested.

The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc