Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

mobile.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 142 posts

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#101

Post by downandout »

uw_rob wrote: post #98
downandout wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when I’m done doing that, I should probably check my sanity, because I have to be imagining this thread. It’s absurd that someone thinks that they have an expectation of privacy when they voluntarily choose to send a message to someone else. I know you can’t satisfy everyone all the people all the time, but this idea is just bonkers.

> It’s absurd that someone thinks that they have an expectation of privacy when they voluntarily choose to send a message to someone else. How does this world view reconcile with the fact that many different states have 2 party consent? Or the fact that considerable money and effort have been spent on concepts like OTR? People expect others to have some discretion in what private information they pass on to others. M…

You can easily forward a single email to someone in gmail, but there is not 1-click solution to send all of your emails to someone else.

That’s actually wrong. Right now, today, you can write apps for the Gmail platform that could have this ability as soon as someone authorizes it [1]. So everyone is down on Facebook, who disabled this ability 4 years ago. What about Google?

[1] https://developers.google.com/gmail/

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#102

Post by paulddraper »

bigiain wrote: post #84
downandout wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes the user agreed to grant some permissions so a quiz could be taken. You had to authorize the messages permission separately from all other permissions. If you didn't want your messages accessed, you simply declined that permission. This one's on the user, not on anybody else.

I strongly disagree - this one is on Facebook. For building a system that even allowed a "quiz" to ask for message permission in the first place. Everybody (and Facebook best of all) knows that users will click [Accept] or [I've read the 27 page T&Cs] or [I hereby give Cambridge Analytica my firstborn child] without even slowing down to consider any consequences - in return for another tiny dopamine fix.

Sounds like both sides got what they wanted.

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#103

Post by musage »

downandout wrote: post #101
uw_rob wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s absurd that someone thinks that they have an expectation of privacy when they voluntarily choose to send a message to someone else. How does this world view reconcile with the fact that many different states have 2 party consent? Or the fact that considerable money and effort have been spent on concepts like OTR? People expect others to have some discretion in what private information they pass on to others. M…

You can easily forward a single email to someone in gmail, but there is not 1-click solution to send all of your emails to someone else. That’s actually wrong. Right now, today, you can write apps for the Gmail platform that could have this ability as soon as someone authorizes it [1]. So everyone is down on Facebook, who disabled this ability 4 years ago. What about Google? [1] https://developers.google.com/gmail/

> What about Google?

Well, when that is criticized you probably just say "what about Facebook?" or "what about the NSA?" and so on. Unless someone positively stated that Google or NSA or whatever should be exempt, bringing that up is just a red herring that doesn't deserve answer one.

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#104

Post by clusmore »

b212 wrote: post #24
dranov wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, v1.0 of the Facebook Graph API could access users' private messages via the 'read_mailbox' API request [1]. This was deprecated when v2.0 launched. " Version 1.0 of the Graph API launched on April 21, 2010. It was deprecated in April 2014 and closed completely to legacy apps (ie, existing apps that used the API before April 2014) on April 30, 2015. " [1] https://medium.com/tow-center/the-graph-api-key-poi…

But why? Why would anyone set up an API access to PRIVATE messages. That's crazy :o

In late 2013 I used (I think) the Graph API to pull my own private chat messages so I could see what messages I sent and received on a particular day, to remind myself when certain events happened. I can't think of many good reasons for this API to exist to third parties, but it was pretty handy for my own data.

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#105

Post by dsacco »

Alex3917 wrote: post #80
downandout wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do RFC's have to do with his comment that he has an expectation of privacy when he sends people messages? Regardless, at least under US law, he's way off base.

If two or more parties are communicating via a standardized protocol, then using that standard constitutes an implied agreement between the parties communicating. Whereas with Facebook, while one or more parties might be bound by some agreement with the company, that doesn't create any clear agreement between users.

This is a pretty weak argument. Using a standard established by an RFC implies a user has read that standard about as much as using Facebook implies a user has read the TOS. The TOS establishes a transitive condition that the user agrees to about as much as they agree to one-to-one commumication under the RFC.

If you have a problem with usage implying consent to a TOS then you can make that argument, but this one is flimsy.

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#106

Post by dsacco »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #78
paxys wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of valid uses. Why would it be better for your data to be locked up and unexportable?

False equivalence. Exportable doesn't mean acessible to the world.

The commenter didn’t make that “false equivalence.” Their point is that there are valid reasons a user might want to allow an application to access their messages.

For example, reddit’s API allows applications to access messages, which is useful for third party clients.

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#107

Post by JoshMnem »

downandout wrote: post #27

Why is it surprising or even remotely controversial that an app that people explicitly authorized to access their messages (informed consent) then proceeded to access their messages? The app didn't have access to friends' messages, so I don't see what the issue is here, other than yet another clickbait headline.

When it comes to permissions and electronic privacy, consumers don't understand how things work, so they aren't really giving consent. And many aspects of the modern Internet are designed to trick them.

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#108

Post by propogandist »

downandout wrote: post #55
tzakrajs wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have a private conversation, you shouldn't have the right to reproduce the contents of my contributions to the conversation.

Then you better go protest at Google's offices, because Gmail allows apps to interact with your email too.

by using Gmail, you are allowing Google to scrape what might otherwise be private messages

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#109

Post by acchow »

Alex3917 wrote: post #68
downandout wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would also like to impose a ban on email forwarding then right? Because that means the person who received your message took it, and exposed it to others that you didn't authorize. I can tell you that at least in the US, legally, your position doesn't hold water. We're getting a little ridiculous here. There are valid complaints against Facebook in all of this - this just doesn't happen to be one of them.

> So you would also like to impose a ban on email forwarding then right? The difference is that email forwarding is part of the RFCs and IETF standards that define email, e.g.: https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5598 http://arc-spec.org/

You think people using email know anything about email standards? RFCs?

They see a "forward" button in their email client. Just like Facebook Messenger has a "forward" button on messages.

No one is expecting a different level of privacy in Facebook Messenger over email because of the IETF.

Re: Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages

#110

Post by kj1415 »

twostoned wrote: post #85
atwebb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people I've discussed with, the surprising part is that they can do anything with it. You and I know that (currently) if someone has the data, they'll scrape/manipulate it at will. I believe, a reasonable person, would expect the limits of the access grant to end with the purpose of the app (a quiz) and not extend any further. Most contracts/agreements have limits and this one is implicit in the working of the ap…

I think this is a concept that I find myself perplexed about. The defense of a lot of the use of acquired data is, "but you opted in!", which is of course true. However, when we give software access to things it's usually expected that the access is to conduct tasks pertaining to why we would want that software in the first place. For example when I use a web browser I give it internet access so that I can browse the…

Another thing worth thinking about is terms of service for websites. Most people don't read them, they just click accept because it's required to use the website. Most assume it's just standard legal speak that most sites use.

I feel like private messages are something that should never be granted to third party apps on Facebook. People just click allow because they assume whatever is listed, is being used for the purpose of the application.

Post reply on HN