N.B. Patents are a lagging indicator of what a company is doing. They're made public more than a year after submission.
Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
21–30 of 173 posts
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#22It's all justified because "We connect people. Period."
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah software is this funny new world where the cost of manufacture and distribution is orders of magnitude less than the cost of invention. Patents were intended to solve the opposite problem. Software patents are just inexcusable
There are algorithms that, in my opinion, would deserve a patent, though. Software can, in some cases, be more clever than e.g. mechanical inventions. It would be unfair if one inventor could apply for a patent, while the other could not.
Copyright can still exist, as well as licensing and IP law and trade secret protection. Patenting is just saying "we'll disclose this invention in exchange for a temporary monopoly".
It's especially problematic in software because algorithms are very closely tied to fundamental mathematical axoims. For example, you can't just try really hard and make a O(n) sort. There is no benefit to society to granting a monopoly on a faster O(nlogn) sort
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are algorithms that, in my opinion, would deserve a patent, though. Software can, in some cases, be more clever than e.g. mechanical inventions. It would be unfair if one inventor could apply for a patent, while the other could not.
Should we allow for algorithms to be patented though? To reserve something so abstract would be near equal to claiming a mathematical formula for oneself. If IBM had patented the fast Fourier transform, where would signal processing be?
If someone can patent, say, the magsafe connector, then I don't see why someone couldn't patent the FFT.
Whether it's a good thing that patents exist is another matter, though.
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook is a multi-billion dollar corporation with a history of obfuscating the truth and a terrible record on privacy. With the power they have they deserve scrutiny. I agree that selecting patents isn't a very convincing aproach but it is another data point. Could it just be that NYT is printing a lot of negative articles because they're are a lot of incidents involving Facebook doing something wrong?
Where was this level of scrutiny before last year? Did fb turn evil in 2017.
Just because they didn't do something before why should they do it now? Is that really your argument?
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#26It's crazy how the large companies file so many patents for any idea their employees can think of. We used to have a lawyer come to our desks once a month and they would try patent any idea you could come up with even off the top of your head. Not sure how small companies can compete when larger companies can buy up all the IP in a space without having to do any work. The smaller companies I've worked for have to be…
I just had a company want to enforce http://limegreenip.hoganlovells.com/article/104/patents-law-... -- for a contract gig!
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#27Yet another New York Times hit piece against Facebook. It makes you wonder what a private corporation is supposed to do. In just this year: 1) The New York Times has published an endless stream editorials calling for Facebook to be destroyed [1], insisting Facebook is a thread to national security [2] and declaring Facebook a threat to the republic [3]. 2) These editorials are joined by "reporting" insinuating that F…
Facebook is a multi-billion dollar corporation with a history of obfuscating the truth and a terrible record on privacy. With the power they have they deserve scrutiny. I agree that selecting patents isn't a very convincing aproach but it is another data point. Could it just be that NYT is printing a lot of negative articles because they're are a lot of incidents involving Facebook doing something wrong?
> Facebook is a multi-billion dollar corporation with a history of obfuscating the truth and a terrible record on privacy. With the power they have they deserve scrutiny.
Definitely agree.
> Could it just be that NYT is printing a lot of negative articles because they're are a lot of incidents involving Facebook doing something wrong?
Yes probably, though I've also noticed a certain level of bias. Google and Amazon probably have as many "creepy" patents to infer user behaviour, yet we don't hear as much about them on this space. Hell, Google pretty much invented the whole concept of tracking users across websites, "shadow profiles", and personalized search/ads.
Cambride Analytica was bad and Facebook should've veto'd its API users better from the get-go. The next obvious step after that article was a look at Google's own leaky data practices: I've installed too many Android games which ask for essentially full-phone access and I'm sure there's people who, much like with CA, don't consider the implications and just hit "ok".
I'm not trying to defend Facebook here, but I do want to point out they're not the only ones who should be getting scrutinized.
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#28It's all justified because "We connect people. Period."
"we stalk people. period"
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are algorithms that, in my opinion, would deserve a patent, though. Software can, in some cases, be more clever than e.g. mechanical inventions. It would be unfair if one inventor could apply for a patent, while the other could not.
Should we allow for algorithms to be patented though? To reserve something so abstract would be near equal to claiming a mathematical formula for oneself. If IBM had patented the fast Fourier transform, where would signal processing be?
Patents on mp3 and RSA didn’t prevent them from being used everywhere. I guess a patent on FFT (which, by the way, was considered at the time, according to Wikipedia) wouldn’t have stopped its adoption either.
Also, IMO, a formula, which tells you what to compute, is essentially different from an algorithm, which tells you how. FFT would be patentable because it is non-obvious, even when given the formula for doing a Fourier transform.
It still might be non-patentable on other grounds, such as the fact that Gauss apparently described it in 1805 (http://www.cis.rit.edu/class/simg716/Gauss_History_FFT.pdf), two years before Fourier published his work on what now is known as Fourier series.
Re: Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook is a multi-billion dollar corporation with a history of obfuscating the truth and a terrible record on privacy. With the power they have they deserve scrutiny. I agree that selecting patents isn't a very convincing aproach but it is another data point. Could it just be that NYT is printing a lot of negative articles because they're are a lot of incidents involving Facebook doing something wrong?
> Facebook is a multi-billion dollar corporation with a history of obfuscating the truth and a terrible record on privacy. With the power they have they deserve scrutiny. Definitely agree. > Could it just be that NYT is printing a lot of negative articles because they're are a lot of incidents involving Facebook doing something wrong? Yes probably, though I've also noticed a certain level of bias. Google and Amazon p…
Agree all the large powerful tech companies need to be scrutinized. Given Zucherberg had to testify at Congress recently it seems reasonable and expected that it would result in a little more focus on them.