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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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any concrete red-line that Facebook could cross. I've never been a techno-utopian, and the Snowden leaks were the catalyst that drove me to learn programming. I recall being in my early teens, when I went to create my (first) Facebook account. I mentioned it to my dad. He explicitly told me that whatever I did on Facebook would go to their servers, that whatever reached their servers was theirs, and…

what do you use for search, then?

For general queries, I use Searx.me. Occasionally I'll use Google if Searx is down, or I need technical information that I need search operators for.

For current events, I use Searx, Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, and Baidu (if I'm really digging). I don't trust any one provider on politically sensitive topics, and the the order/kinds of the results can occasionally carry as much signal as the the content of them.

I'm not conspiracy mongering, though. I merely think of search algorithms as extensions of the contexts in-which they're designed, and are more likely to represent the interests of their creators than my search for knowledge.

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

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully from Federal prison with a life sentence. Literally billions of times he and his execs, managers, and engineers have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Federal Wiretap Act, and more.

Facebook could be considered as a strategic military asset, as it is capable of quite accurately mapping people around the world. Relationships between people in Iran, same place same time, same IP, ghost profiles... If you were the CIA, wouldn’t you work on protecting/ preventing such people from having a trial?

Of course it is. I agree with your comment. I also think FB is the work of secret services, from its inception to the present day. I've seen Zuck talk, and he doesn't strike me as a specially smart guy. But he's young and always smiling, shows enthusiasm and that's what people need. It's a nice cover.

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

#95
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish there was a way to figure out _why_ I'm getting some ads, to dispel that fear. On Instagram last weekend I and a friend were shown a number of ads for Chandon sparking wine after I bought a bottle, and someone else at the party also did and we talked about it. Both of us insist we didn't google sparkling wine, Chandon, or anything we think relevant... it really does on the face of it appear Facebook had l…

Boy, if you think the amount of data FB sells is creepy, wait until you find out how much information your insurance provider sells, or your cell phone provider, or your credit card provider, or your health provider... If you ever get in a car accident in the United States don't be surprised to get mail the very next day from accident insurance attorneys because you bet every service you use is selling every aspect o…

Is this reply meant to be for me? It doesn't seem specifically relevant.

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

#96

It is absolutely obscene how much of a breach of trust and decency these are. Facebook still hasn't fully come clean because they knew they were doing unsavory activities and just wanted to not get caught and keep getting away with it.

If worse comes to worst, they can become a credit rating agency.

There should be a CFAA for personal information.

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

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish there was a way to figure out _why_ I'm getting some ads, to dispel that fear. On Instagram last weekend I and a friend were shown a number of ads for Chandon sparking wine after I bought a bottle, and someone else at the party also did and we talked about it. Both of us insist we didn't google sparkling wine, Chandon, or anything we think relevant... it really does on the face of it appear Facebook had l…

If you purchased the wine with a credit card then Facebook has the ability through agreements with other data providers/aggregators to connect it back to your Facebook, Instagram, etc account. Source: I know someone who is in biz dev at one of said companies and sells this type of “profile” data to Facebook and countless other companies. If you purchased with cash then sure does sound like they were somehow listening…

Hmm, I did. But her bottle was a leftover from a wedding several months ago (because we're connected on IG perhaps? Seems like quite the stretch though).

Also surely advertising the same wine I just bought to me is... dodgy ROI at best?

It'll remain a mystery forever.

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

#98
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…

It's not exactly nefarious to query friends of friends in the same geographical area. The problem is people willingly constructing a social graph without care for the consequences. G+ theoretically enabled this sort of isolation but in practice it is too much work to maintain separation. The only way to win is not to play at all.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you purchased the wine with a credit card then Facebook has the ability through agreements with other data providers/aggregators to connect it back to your Facebook, Instagram, etc account. Source: I know someone who is in biz dev at one of said companies and sells this type of “profile” data to Facebook and countless other companies. If you purchased with cash then sure does sound like they were somehow listening…

Hmm, I did. But her bottle was a leftover from a wedding several months ago (because we're connected on IG perhaps? Seems like quite the stretch though). Also surely advertising the same wine I just bought to me is... dodgy ROI at best? It'll remain a mystery forever.

At least wine is a consumable. Compare the thread on how Amazon will relentlessly advertise you the same refrigerator you just purchased.

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

#100
post #42

A basic principle of PR is that you should trickle out good news, and get all the bad news out in one dump. Because when bad news trickles out, and the public reads a fresh bit of bad news every day, it does more damage. One wonders at Facebook's very passive strategy here. They're not controlling the narrative at all, and we're reading a fresh bit of bad news almost every day.

A couple years ago Zuck was hinting at creating a privatized global government to compete with the U.N. I feel like a lot of the good stuff hasn’t even started coming out yet.
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