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Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

nytimes.com

161–170 of 248 posts

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#161

IANAL. But this: "reports last June and December that Facebook had given business partners — including makers of smartphones, tablets and other devices — deep access to users’ personal information, letting some companies effectively override users’ privacy settings." suggests breach-of-contract. Just by creating those privacy settings, the company is 'saying' to (promising) the customer who elects to use them that it…

Referring to Facebook users as customers is quaint.

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake address is a good start... Like a PO box you own. Banks are the worst offenders in sharing data with... Data brokers.

Wait, isnt that illegal? Afaik you need to use correct information in a contract.

If the mail reaches me then AFAIU it's legal. A contract does not stipulate that I must spend nights at the address I provide. How, for example, would you otherwise deal with having two residences?

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, isnt that illegal? Afaik you need to use correct information in a contract.

If the mail reaches me then AFAIU it's legal. A contract does not stipulate that I must spend nights at the address I provide. How, for example, would you otherwise deal with having two residences?

While you may have multiple residencies, legally you have one domicile. This is the location where you live and verification of you actually living there is required by most contracts and is enforceable in a court.

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#164
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake address is a good start... Like a PO box you own. Banks are the worst offenders in sharing data with... Data brokers.

Get a better bank. And better banking regulation. I'm pretty sure Dutch (and probably European) banks aren't allowed to share their customers' data around like that, and I'm horrified that there are banks that do this.

Well, the largest Dutch payment provider did intend to sell payment data: https://nos.nl/artikel/510009-banken-verkopen-pingedrag-klan...

(They've since retracted that plan after the plan was met with widespread disapproval. I don't think they've tried again since.)

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#165
post #44
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individually negotiated confidential deals are not the same as open APIs and protocols which is where alternative clients normally come into play. And the “alternative client” stuff doesn’t even apply to Amazon, Bing etc

Ironically, the whole point of having individual deals rather than an API open to everyone seems to have been ensuring the companies didn't do anything dodgy with people's data. Then the New York Times spun Facebook's approval process as them giving those companies special access to users' data, even when that data never left the end user devices, and now this has apparently lead to a criminal investigation.

>>Ironically, the whole point of having individual deals rather than an API open to everyone seems to have been ensuring the companies didn't do anything dodgy with people's data.

They were not charged for special API access? Still, FB might have used this as a negotiating tool as they dealt with Apple, Microsoft etc etc

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#166

IANAL. But this: "reports last June and December that Facebook had given business partners — including makers of smartphones, tablets and other devices — deep access to users’ personal information, letting some companies effectively override users’ privacy settings." suggests breach-of-contract. Just by creating those privacy settings, the company is 'saying' to (promising) the customer who elects to use them that it…

Referring to Facebook users as customers is quaint.

Lifelog entries

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#167
post #134

"It is not clear when the grand jury inquiry, overseen by prosecutors with the United States attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York, began or exactly what it is focusing on." What is NYT source for this story? A leak about the existence of an investigation? NYT journalist saw entries for grand jury subpoenas on PACER? How do they know the crime has to do with data deals? We must wait until complaint i…

Are you suggesting NYT is lying...? I mean, why they'd lie about it? Prosecutors use the media routinely to push their POV so it's not that strange...

Not revealing sources is SOP

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#168

IANAL. But this: "reports last June and December that Facebook had given business partners — including makers of smartphones, tablets and other devices — deep access to users’ personal information, letting some companies effectively override users’ privacy settings." suggests breach-of-contract. Just by creating those privacy settings, the company is 'saying' to (promising) the customer who elects to use them that it…

IANAL either, but two things stand out. First, breach of contract is not a criminal wrong, only a civil one. Second, it would be a big stretch to say that the relationship between users and Facebook (or any nominally free service) is a contract, as valid contracts must follow certain requirements like consideration or a meeting of the minds. This is partly why things like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that e.g. Aaron Swartz was being prosecuted under (persecuted, IMHO) can be so alarming: things like terms of service normally wouldn't even stand up as a contract, but under CFAA, they can give rise to criminal charges.

I have no idea what charges the Eastern District of NY might be seeking pursuant to these data deals, but maybe something like mail/wire fraud or honest services fraud? Again IANAL, but those are fairly broad and the government could make the case that Facebook fraudulently breached its duties to its users.

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#169
post #154
post #148

OT: While I like how FB is recently struggling, I have to say that their open source contributions and the teams working on those are by far the best in this industry. I hope they keep up doing this great work despite all their problems.

by far? redhat, ibm, (linux, java, etc) for starters...

Intel (Linux, Mesa), Microsoft (VS Code, .Net core, Python, Language Server Protocol)

Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

#170
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the mail reaches me then AFAIU it's legal. A contract does not stipulate that I must spend nights at the address I provide. How, for example, would you otherwise deal with having two residences?

While you may have multiple residencies, legally you have one domicile. This is the location where you live and verification of you actually living there is required by most contracts and is enforceable in a court.

Unless of course you don’t live anywhere because you move every 4 weeks.

Turns out our society is really not designed for someone without a physical residence. It’s made for a frustrating year for me.

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