Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#161

Post by barkingcat » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:08 PM UTC

jsjohnst wrote: post #148

cmroanirgo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment. But, as someone who understands that not all people and companies use the same moral set as myself, this is why I've never set up 2fa using a phone. Why should I give some company my phone number? Increasingly it's become a single point of metadata to uniquely describe myself (just as my email addresses have).

> just as my email addresses have That doesn’t need to be the case though with just a little bit of effort and minimal cost. Use your own domain for email and set your account to be a catchall. Then use facebook.com@yourdomain.tld and your email address is no longer a cross site unique identifier.

Isn't this it though, the engineers designing the ad targeting system at Facebook is linking the random emails you use as "catch all" to your main identity so you can be targeted specifically even though neither party has full knowledge of the linkage between your catchall email and your main identity email. This is facilitated by information that is not under your control.

If facebook was able to design and build this system, you can bet that other companies are doing this too.

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#162

Post by usrusr » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #125

usrusr wrote: post #25

The other really stupid thing, besides generally hurting the adoption of 2FA forever, is that they probably did it for hardly more than scraps, compared to their conventional add targeting capabilities. Maybe I am completely wrong about this, but I'm pretty convinced that almost all of the ad spending for that feature would have reached Facebook's coffers anyways had it not been available.

Same can be said about personally-targeted advertising in general. Really, how more effective is it?

For exotic niche products, incredibly. On Facebook, you can advertise to golfers who don't subscribe to a golf magazine. This is new and valuable (to everybody except the publishers of golf magazines, who suddenly have to face competition in golf-specific ad-spending). But if you are selling washing detergents, even the tiniest premium for targeted over untargeted would be a waste.

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#163

Post by jeromegv » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #158

mtgx wrote: post #140

Google has been pushing SMS 2FA a little more aggressively over the past couple of years, too. And I think Apple made it "easier to use SMS 2FA" in iOS 12 for the same reason. I also said before that this is exactly why Facebook wanted to "verify people's faces for security purposes", too. It just seemed so obvious to me that Facebook would use security as an excuse to get people to put their own 100% accurate face s…

> And I think Apple made it "easier to use SMS 2FA" in iOS 12 for the same reason. Wait. You think Apple is selling your phone number to advertisers?

That person is confusing different things.

Apple is making it easier to use SMS 2FA in iOS 12 (automated copy paste)

However Apple itself doesn’t use SMS for 2FA.

As for Apple they had your phone number since the launch of the iPhone (!). Never needed 2FA to know it.

And no, Apple isn’t selling your phone number.

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#164

Post by mellow-lake-day » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

pilif wrote: post #138

Didn't we have this discussion already earlier this year and they told us it was an unfortunate bug and that it has been fixed? Yes. Yes. We did: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/16/17022162/facebook-two-fac...

[flagged]

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#165

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #158

mtgx wrote: post #140

Google has been pushing SMS 2FA a little more aggressively over the past couple of years, too. And I think Apple made it "easier to use SMS 2FA" in iOS 12 for the same reason. I also said before that this is exactly why Facebook wanted to "verify people's faces for security purposes", too. It just seemed so obvious to me that Facebook would use security as an excuse to get people to put their own 100% accurate face s…

> And I think Apple made it "easier to use SMS 2FA" in iOS 12 for the same reason. Wait. You think Apple is selling your phone number to advertisers?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#166

Post by epicide » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #91

Isn0gud wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you give a $$$ option instead of giving up data than you removed the intended targets of most ads out of your advertising pool.

The ultimate goal is to make money, not serve ads.

Of course, but I can guarantee Facebook has run the numbers. They are currently doing what makes them the most money. That happens to be ads.

The user data they sell to advertisers has a lot to do with your social network. Who you know, what their interests are, who they know, etc.

For Facebook to allow individuals to pay to opt out of their data being sold, it affects more than just that individual's data. I.e. it affects all their friends and friends-of-friends data.

I expect that the only way Facebook would be able to offer a pay-to-opt-out plan would be for everyone on Facebook to start doing, which would never work and they would never attempt.

I imagine the most we'll see in this direction is some sort of half-assed attempt where they offer to let you pay them money to stop some tracking, but still continue to most of it anyway.

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#167

Post by AllegedAlec » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

qubax wrote: post #153

anilakar wrote: post #13

This is exactly the kind of abuse that GDPR is designed to curtail.

So disappointed in the GDPR evangelism on HN. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180920/17133740682/gdpr-... GDPR is a tool that is going to be abused to hide and censor. The EU didn't create this regulation for the benefit of the citizens of EU.

The Right to be Forgotten existed before GDPR though.

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#168

Post by JetSpiegel » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

daemin wrote: post #120

psykus wrote: post #84

You'll notice whenever you get the banner to add a phone number for 2FA, it says "add your phone number for additional security and more "

I also hate how all the social media apps want to grab your address book to "see who else you know on here". They all do it.

At least on recent Android you can deny it. The UI doesn't support it and you need to resort to hacks such as https://whatsappwithoutcontact.com/

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#169

Post by gruez » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

jsjohnst wrote: post #148

cmroanirgo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment. But, as someone who understands that not all people and companies use the same moral set as myself, this is why I've never set up 2fa using a phone. Why should I give some company my phone number? Increasingly it's become a single point of metadata to uniquely describe myself (just as my email addresses have).

> just as my email addresses have That doesn’t need to be the case though with just a little bit of effort and minimal cost. Use your own domain for email and set your account to be a catchall. Then use facebook.com@yourdomain.tld and your email address is no longer a cross site unique identifier.

>Then use facebook.com@yourdomain.tld and your email address is no longer a cross site unique identifier.

unless sites smarten up and realize facebook@johndoe.com is the same person as pizzaplace@johndoe.com, especially when johndoe.com isn't a "common" email domain like hotmail.com

Re: Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access To Your Shadow Contact Information

#170

Post by r1ch » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

aurbano wrote: post #159

finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this, and concluded that friend suggestions must use GPS to see who I am near on a regular basis.

This is absolutely true, when I moved to London a few years ago, I rented a room in a house with 3 other housemates I had never met. Within 1-2 days, Facebook recommended one of them as a friend - bear in mind I hadn't added any of them to Fb, so all it could have used was our location...

I believe they used Wifi BSSID tracking for that, GPS would be too battery heavy. If you're connected to the same Wifi networks it can reasonably assume you're in the same vicinity.