111–120 of 142 posts
Private messages? There is ZERO excuse for such leak. It is either utterly incompetence or intentionally malicious. Facebook needs to be hold accountable, period.
I think the outrageous part is that app developers could get data of their users' friends - those are the people that never used the app or agreed to its permissions.
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.
I'm not sure if we have enough details to say if this was informed consent or not.
But I doubt it was informed consent if the messages were gathered by the Facebook app. Back when I had that app installed, Android did not support granular privacy. One day I got an update notification that said a new update would get the permission to read text messages. I believe the rational was so the app could automatically parse a text message confirmation code. Since I'm savvy, I never installed that update or any other update it ever again. Now it turns out Facebook used that permission to slurp up people's text messages into it profile of them.
This wasn't informed consent: I wasn't honestly told what they would use the permission for, the request wasn't clear (just the standard android notice), and it was an all or nothing ask.
yet Zuckerberg is testifying as I write, denying, dodging the responsibility and questions. I can't believe it, instead of laying down and confessing, he is trying to justify and blame everyone but Facebook.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By granting access to your messages, they are also implicitly gaining access to your friend's messages with you. All people should have an expectation of privacy that when they send a private message to someone, that someone does not have the right to disclose the conversation.
That expectation has never existed. If you share something private with someone else, it belongs to them now, and they can forward it to whoever they want regardless of the sharing medium. The system is based on trust, not some arbitrary security measures.
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.
Users are only being asked for permission to their "messages", are given no further information, and can not proceed if they do not submit to the request.
If you're a good hearted person, you assume that an app needs to use your messages for one specific purpose, much like some apps ask permission to your text messages just so they can automatically validate incoming sms code requests.
Anyway..
So permission to access your messages could mean "we just need to do one thing" or it could mean "we're going to siphon up all of your private data"
The generically worded option preys on the user to be trusting enough to give the other party the benefit of the doubt, which is not how the system should be handled and really is the entire focus of the GDPR being passed in Europe right now to prevent specifically this sort of thing from happening.
Waving 'user consent' around as a reason to do nothing is the wrong approach.
“Private messages” as in those sent via Facebook Messenger, right? Not Secret Conversations, Facebook’s allegedly e2e messaging product [1]? [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1084673321594605...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By granting access to your messages, they are also implicitly gaining access to your friend's messages with you. All people should have an expectation of privacy that when they send a private message to someone, that someone does not have the right to disclose the conversation.
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.
Edited to add: Granting for instance access to your contacts fro an app is controversial from a legal perspective in Europe. Data protection agencies at least in Germany have the opinion that you need opt-in consent from everybody in the address book to do that.
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.
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…