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Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

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Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#81

Post by ForHackernews »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #30

>Facebook gave Amazon extended access to user data because it was... partnering with the social network on the launch of its Fire smartphone. So is this yet another case of the media being incapable of distinguishing between transferring of data to third parties and displaying data on devices as an agent of the user, i.e. for the purpose of providing an integrated facebook experience? Until the media shows itself to…

Is there any reason to think the companies given access didn't slurp up the Facebook data for themselves? Have any of them denied it or tried to qualify what they did with their access to the Facebook API?

Back in the day, I was part of a team that built an app that used Facebook Connect/what they were then calling the "Graph API" for login, and our app certainly saved all the data that Facebook made available back into our own database.

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#82

Post by JohnFen »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34
AlexandrB wrote: post #28

> “As we’ve said many times, Six4Three — creators of the Pikinis app — cherry picked these documents from years ago as part of a lawsuit to force Facebook to share information on friends of the app's users,” Paul Grewal, vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, said in a statement released by the company. > “The set of documents, by design, tells only one side of the story and omits important context. .…

They've already made it clear that (they claim) the overall framing was user privacy. Maybe they're lying, but if they aren't I don't know what further context they could provide.

There has been so much lying on these topics (not only from Facebook) that what the companies claim means little unless they can support the claim with evidence.

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#83

Post by throwsdddddd »

okmokmz wrote: post #60
dymk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Dumb fucks” is more overplayed than “Google is going to shut down ”. It’s FUD. Zuckerberg said that when his tiny website was open to his classmates and a few others, and hasn’t been representative of how the company functions. I seriously cant believe that it’s still a meme people use to justify their hate for Facebook.

It has been perfectly representative of how the company functions. Collecting and monetizing data from the "dumb fucks" with little to no regard for anything other than profits and getting people addicted to their apps edit1: Guess I made some facebook engineers upset as I'm being downvoted. Looks like dymk is likely a facebook engineer, as his comment history has lots of comments seemingly supporting facebook, data…

This is a continuing problem on this platform. Facebook engineers disguising themselves as regular joe defending Facebook, when they have a personal interest. Silently downvoting or flagging comments. This isn’t the first time someone has mentioned this problem. They should be upfront about it and say they are a Facebook engineer and why they disagree.

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#84

Post by jlarocco »

dymk wrote: post #27
AlexandrB wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why people were so unwilling to accept Zuckerberg's own sentiment ("dumb fucks") about their data for years. It seems like that's basically the attitude at Facebook from the top down. Everything else is PR spin.

“Dumb fucks” is more overplayed than “Google is going to shut down ”. It’s FUD. Zuckerberg said that when his tiny website was open to his classmates and a few others, and hasn’t been representative of how the company functions. I seriously cant believe that it’s still a meme people use to justify their hate for Facebook.

The "dumb fucks" quote is basically Facebook's business model.

"Here's all this data we have about people, pay us money and we'll help you exploit it."

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#85

Post by 3xblah »

"The facts are clear: we've never sold people's data." - Paul Grewal, VP and Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Facebook

Yeah, but that is not what is being alleged.

What is being alleged is that you sell access to people's data.

This constant recitation of "We do not sell users' data" is like being in late stage litigation where each party's lawyers have chosen their respective arguments. They will cling to them no matter what happens, repeating them ad nauseum until the end.

Facebook's argument is "We do not sell people's data".

The issue however is not selling people's data. As such, this is not an argument. It is just misdirection.

The issue is selling access to people's data.

Maybe we could call this "licensing"? Maybe it is more desirable for Facebook to license access to people's data than to sell it.

"People's data" might be their friends list, or whatever they have uploaded or contributed to Zuckerberg's website.

Facebook's lawyers will not address the issue of selling access to people's data. The reason is clear: they do not have a winning argument.

Then we have the matter of metadata. Facebook will let a user download their data, but not their metadata. All that data on her usage patterns on facebook.com and across the web that Facebook collects 24/7/365, e.g. via "Like" beacons and "Sign-In with Facebook".

If a user downloads her data from Facebook it does not tell her anything she didn't already know. It is simply the data she submitted to Zuckerberg.

But of course he has much more data about her that she is not allowed to see. The question is, "Why not?"

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#86

Post by netsharc »

devoply wrote: post #46
hackinthebochs wrote: post #30

>Facebook gave Amazon extended access to user data because it was... partnering with the social network on the launch of its Fire smartphone. So is this yet another case of the media being incapable of distinguishing between transferring of data to third parties and displaying data on devices as an agent of the user, i.e. for the purpose of providing an integrated facebook experience? Until the media shows itself to…

If you go and look at all the sites that have implemented Facebook Connect and their beacon you know there was a quid pro quo there. You don't know however the nature of the deal. But Facebook seems very generous with sharing your data with other large companies... as the data itself is worth pennies but scarfing much more of it from partners is worth billions.

It's so fucking aggravating that Facebook says "Don't worry, 3rd parties won't abuse the data, because that would be against the rules.".

A friend of mine wanted to remove her name from all social media, she said there's one site left that seemed to just mirror FB, and my name was on it too, it seemed the creator managed to download all the data accessible to apps and he even claimed making that site wasn't against FB's agreement...

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#87

Post by int_19h »

cageface wrote: post #44
whatshisface wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and a corrupt left-wing leader could use the exact same techniques. Like the guns they put on the back of Toyota trucks in third world countries, this tracking stuff has no particular allegiance.

Promoting negative emotions is a lot easier than promoting positive emotions. To a very large degree the platform of the right is currently heavily weighted toward provoking fear and anger, negative emotions easy to stoke in people. This might change and we may have an ascendant party on the left with a primarily negative message eventually. And I'm not saying the current left never does this. But at the moment the r…

There's enough hate, anger and other similar emotions on the left, that memes like these get made by other people on the left to combat it (with not much success, from my own experience).

https://i.imgur.com/YFQ9zO6.jpg

I would also like to remind that among the many pages removed from the very same Facebook because they were inciting hate and anger as part of the Russian propaganda ops, quite a few were targeting left-leaning audiences.

In general, populists of all stripes are going to appeal to those emotions precisely because it's much easier to evoke them. So whichever side has a stronger populist faction at any given moment is the one that benefits most. In some places (like US) it's the right wing currently, in others, it's the left.

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#88

Post by netsharc »

okmokmz wrote: post #60
dymk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Dumb fucks” is more overplayed than “Google is going to shut down ”. It’s FUD. Zuckerberg said that when his tiny website was open to his classmates and a few others, and hasn’t been representative of how the company functions. I seriously cant believe that it’s still a meme people use to justify their hate for Facebook.

It has been perfectly representative of how the company functions. Collecting and monetizing data from the "dumb fucks" with little to no regard for anything other than profits and getting people addicted to their apps edit1: Guess I made some facebook engineers upset as I'm being downvoted. Looks like dymk is likely a facebook engineer, as his comment history has lots of comments seemingly supporting facebook, data…

> Collecting and monetizing data from the "dumb fucks" with little to no regard.

I doubt humans are that simplistic, but at the end of the day, it seems they all have a price, and for that price they can invent lies so they can sleep at night thinking they're decent people.

And until this headline I thought they (and Zuck in particular) still had a code of honor when they say they won't abuse the trust their users had, but, well, apparenly that also has a price.

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#89

Post by CharlesColeman »

mariushn wrote: post #29

How many of the commenters here still use WhatsApp? Did you try switching you & friends to Signal?

> How many of the commenters here still use WhatsApp? Did you try switching you & friends to Signal?

I no longer use WhatsApp, and I have switched most of the people I text with over to Signal. I don't know if they use it with others, but they certainly use it with me.

Re: Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years

#90

Post by smallgovt »

3xblah wrote: post #85

"The facts are clear: we've never sold people's data." - Paul Grewal, VP and Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Facebook Yeah, but that is not what is being alleged. What is being alleged is that you sell access to people's data. This constant recitation of "We do not sell users' data" is like being in late stage litigation where each party's lawyers have chosen their respective arguments. They will cling to them no matter what ha…

I agree Facebook is playing word games, but I think that misses the larger point. That is, Facebook is not selling access to people's data as understood by the lay person.

The average person interprets "Facebook sells access to your data" as meaning that someone can pay Facebook to access your individual data. e.g. What sites did 3xblah, specifically, visit last week?

This isn't how Facebook's ecosystem works. Advertisers can only target users in large groups. And, there's no way for advertisers to query Facebook's servers for the personal data of a specific user.

If you explain exactly what Facebook is doing to the average person they simply don't care (even if you explain all the potential risks to their personal security).

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