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As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

nytimes.com

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Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#51

Post by pvg »

AlexandrB wrote: post #24
sneak wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shared under NDA with business relationships is not “public” for the common use of the term. Although I agree with your sentiment, your statement isn’t really accurate. Otherwise I would be able to read Spotify users’ facebook DMs, and I can’t.

You’re kidding, right? If I send a “private” message, but everybody from law enforcement to my bank has access to it, it’s not private. It’s public knowledge as far as any background checks or loan applications are concerned. By contrast, if my bank worked out a deal with Bell where they get to record my all phone conversations they would still be committing a felony in almost all jurisdictions, NDA or not. That’s a…

It’s public knowledge as far as any background checks or loan applications are concerned.

You give permission for those and the data accessed is often not public. There are degrees of privacy - what you're trying to do make up your own definition of 'public' and then have message board fights about it. It's not really a sensible position, let alone interesting conversation.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#53

Post by why_only_15 »

gowld wrote: post #27
catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #12

Whoa! This makes sense now. "and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages" When I watched 21 on Netflix, Facebook Messenger on my phone suggested to play blackjack, literally the hour after.

That's the reverse direction.

All of these were data sharing agreements, they were two way. Samsung, for example, had access to Facebook and also gave Facebook contact info

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#54

Post by sachinmonga »

mindgam3 wrote: post #6

“Among the revelations was that Facebook obtained data from multiple partners for a controversial friend-suggestion tool called “People You May Know.” The feature, introduced in 2008, continues even though some Facebook users have objected to it, unsettled by its knowledge of their real-world relationships. Gizmodo and other news outlets have reported cases of the tool’s recommending friend connections between patien…

RE: Royal Bank of Canada, their access to the Messages API was specifically to let people send money to their friends via Messenger through the RBC app.

In Canada, the only way method for P2P money transfer is through a system called Interac, which relies on email addresses. Using Facebook Login + Messenger was a big improvement since it's harder to accidentally send money to the wrong person.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#55

Post by thaumasiotes »

skybrian wrote: post #45
InclinedPlane wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would grant the app access to those permissions, not the companies. Oh hey, would you look at that: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16143354/facebook-messeng...

I'm a bit worried that some journalists (and some readers) no longer care to make any distinction between an app having access for legitimate reasons that respect users' intentions and the whole company having access to do whatever they like. At least, they don't explain it well.

The distinction doesn't exist in practical terms. The company controls the behavior of the app; the fact that an app has access for legitimate reasons doesn't mean that any given use of the access was for legitimate reasons.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#56

Post by cantthinkofone »

This sequence of exposes and revelations doesn't speak to Facebook's credibility. It would be one thing if it was just the incidents surrounding the 2016 elections, but the pattern in all these news reports seems to be that Facebook's design doesn't simply doesn't respect its users.

Too many features and plugins Facebook has seem to be leaky in some respect. Messanger does not use default end-to-end encryption for whatever mysterious reason. If Facebook owns the endpoints, it can just as easily obtain the data for themselves before encrypting and submitting the message if it were enabled anyway.

How could I have any faith Facebook doesn't collect messages intended to be sent in confidence if collecting them suits Facebook's purposes?

I'm not sure however if Facebook's sketchiness is intentional or not. We have few examples of companies that were early movers in the inception days of the modern internet. And the decisions made early on prefigured everything that was to come.

At this time I would look to other others for inspiration about the correct way to make use of a data jackpot. Facebook's own totally unrestricted laissez-faire mentality in the relentless pursuit and utilization of its data is undermining itself.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#59

Post by firstplacelast »

cantthinkofone wrote: post #56

This sequence of exposes and revelations doesn't speak to Facebook's credibility. It would be one thing if it was just the incidents surrounding the 2016 elections, but the pattern in all these news reports seems to be that Facebook's design doesn't simply doesn't respect its users. Too many features and plugins Facebook has seem to be leaky in some respect. Messanger does not use default end-to-end encryption for wh…

Based on the salaries at Facebook, I would hope it’s intentional.

If not, what the hell are they paying top-of-industry salaries for?

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#60

Post by ardy42 »

mindgam3 wrote: post #6

“Among the revelations was that Facebook obtained data from multiple partners for a controversial friend-suggestion tool called “People You May Know.” The feature, introduced in 2008, continues even though some Facebook users have objected to it, unsettled by its knowledge of their real-world relationships. Gizmodo and other news outlets have reported cases of the tool’s recommending friend connections between patien…

> Well, that explains some of the conspiracy-mongering that was so rampant around this feature. Facebook (probably) wasn’t secretly recording your phone calls etc. They didn’t need to - they were getting streams of data from other partners.

I really wish there was a law requiring real disclosure of such customer/user-data sharing agreements with enough detail to know what's actually happening. The disclosures should include things like schemas, example records, and reasonable names for data receiptients (e.g. Amazon Inc., not Sunshine Data Brokers II Inc., an unacknowledged subsidiary of Amazon).

There's no way to make an informed choice about using a particular service or dealing with a particular company without that.

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