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Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

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Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#71

Post by thecatspaw »

spaceheretostay wrote: post #28
baroffoos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law isn't just ethics. Companies have whole legal teams because laws are so complex. Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok?

> Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok? Yes. 100%. "I was just following orders" is not a valid excuse, ever - Nuremberg is the obvious extreme example, but it's true everywhere.

So a developer should not trust a huge legal team, who's purpose it is to verify all is legal?

How do you expect the developer to figure out its illegal when a team of lawyers couldnt?

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#72

Post by throwaway5167 »

chongli wrote: post #42
jonahb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market cares. It had already priced in a fine, possibly one larger than 3B. The reduction in uncertainty -- knowing the magnitude of the fine -- also positively affects the stock price. If the fine were cancelled tomorrow, you can be sure that, all else equal, Facebook's market cap would jump by 3B. The fines need to be bigger.

Yes. The fine needs to take into account how much Facebook would stand to lose if the case went to trial and they were found guilty, setting a precedent for future actions against them. That seems like it could result in near-unlimited liability for Facebook. The fine for avoiding an admission of wrongdoing should be set equal to the expected value of all that liability, based on an estimate of the probability of win…

There's no way the government has the same resources as Facebook to make that case. The FTC loses when it goes to Court. Facebook would have more lawyers on the case than the FTC has paralegals total.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#73

Post by Causality1 »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

I'm glad the attorney general is getting involved. We need to start charging Facebook execs for these flagrant privacy violations. They're being fined 3 billion dollars for legal expenses relating to an FTC inquiry… and their stock price went up by 8% [1]. The market just does not care; it's time regulators and law enforcement started to. [1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/facebook-stock-is-up-becaus...

Personally I think monetary fines are a fundamentally flawed form of punishment. Send. Decisionmakers. To. Prison. I don't care if it's for just a single day but march them into a courthouse in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#74

Post by chopin »

throwaway5167 wrote: post #72
chongli wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The fine needs to take into account how much Facebook would stand to lose if the case went to trial and they were found guilty, setting a precedent for future actions against them. That seems like it could result in near-unlimited liability for Facebook. The fine for avoiding an admission of wrongdoing should be set equal to the expected value of all that liability, based on an estimate of the probability of win…

There's no way the government has the same resources as Facebook to make that case. The FTC loses when it goes to Court. Facebook would have more lawyers on the case than the FTC has paralegals total.

And that guarantees victory? Interesting judicial system you have, over there.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#75

Post by bryan_w »

orijing wrote: post #49

The article claims the practice "was uncovered by Business Insider last week", implying FB was being sneaky about it. But if you look at the Business Insider article ( https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-uploaded-1-5-millio... ), you'll see this: > A Facebook spokesperson said before May 2016, it offered an option to verify a user's account using their email password and voluntarily upload their contacts at the…

Yeah, this seems like punishing FB for being too honest. There was no technical reason to disclose the bug. I mean if they just quietly deleted the data that they didn't mean to collect, it doesn't seem likely that anyone would even notice.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#76

Post by orijing »

kerng wrote: post #52
orijing wrote: post #49

The article claims the practice "was uncovered by Business Insider last week", implying FB was being sneaky about it. But if you look at the Business Insider article ( https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-uploaded-1-5-millio... ), you'll see this: > A Facebook spokesperson said before May 2016, it offered an option to verify a user's account using their email password and voluntarily upload their contacts at the…

Can we please stop calling these privacy violations bugs? It sounds like a benign thing. These are not bugs anymore. It's unauthorized access to records of millions, and Facebook is the one who performed the violation. I can give a dog walker or cleaning personel the keys to my apartment, still if they steal stuff and I have evidence they will be prosecuted. It's not a bug that they don't have business ethics.

I'm curious, if the message saying that "FB will also import contacts if you proceed" were still visible, would you still consider it "unauthorized access"? Is it really "unauthorized" if users give informed consent?

I doubt it, so it seems that we're just bickering over whether the accidental removal of the message is considered a "bug" or a malicious act by some engineer to trick users into sharing their data because they (and their company) lack business ethics.

Which is more likely?

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#77

Post by Simple_Guy »

jonahb wrote: post #5
jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

I'm glad the attorney general is getting involved. We need to start charging Facebook execs for these flagrant privacy violations. They're being fined 3 billion dollars for legal expenses relating to an FTC inquiry… and their stock price went up by 8% [1]. The market just does not care; it's time regulators and law enforcement started to. [1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/facebook-stock-is-up-becaus...

The market cares. It had already priced in a fine, possibly one larger than 3B. The reduction in uncertainty -- knowing the magnitude of the fine -- also positively affects the stock price. If the fine were cancelled tomorrow, you can be sure that, all else equal, Facebook's market cap would jump by 3B. The fines need to be bigger.

The fines should be 100 billion. Make them itch a little.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#78

Post by Funes- »

sidcool wrote: post #6

This is probably the third investigation against FB this week. How do we still continue trusting it with our personal data? I have been equally stupid in sharing freely on FB/Instagram, not anymore.

What about WhatsApp? Virtually no one in my country--not even the elderly, who now broadly use the app as well--is willing to abandon it, no matter how its parent company is depicted. In fact, last time I checked, around 75% of all population use the app. I don't, and thus I'm paying the price socially--mentally, I'm better off; it comes without saying.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#79

Post by kerng »

orijing wrote: post #76
kerng wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please stop calling these privacy violations bugs? It sounds like a benign thing. These are not bugs anymore. It's unauthorized access to records of millions, and Facebook is the one who performed the violation. I can give a dog walker or cleaning personel the keys to my apartment, still if they steal stuff and I have evidence they will be prosecuted. It's not a bug that they don't have business ethics.

I'm curious, if the message saying that "FB will also import contacts if you proceed" were still visible, would you still consider it "unauthorized access"? Is it really "unauthorized" if users give informed consent? I doubt it, so it seems that we're just bickering over whether the accidental removal of the message is considered a "bug" or a malicious act by some engineer to trick users into sharing their data becau…

Move fast and break things is not what one should do when dealing with personal information of billions of people. People need to be held accountable, Facebook has to be held accountable.

Maybe a complete engineering stop for a few months, and development of new practices and processes.

Similar to what Microsoft did with Bill Gates Trustworthy Computing memo which led to the creation of the Secure Development Lifecycle is something Zuckerberg should order to do.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#80

Post by throwaway_9168 »

kerng wrote: post #59
SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just execs, I hope. The engineers who wrote the code and managers who told them to do it should also face justice.

Interesting point, at first it sounded a bit harsh but thinking a bit about this.... in the end as software engineers we are the ones pulling the trigger and your statement highlights our ethical responsibilities. The problem though is that software engineering doesnt require any licensing requirements, etc. so one can always refer to incompetence being the problem (ooops a bug) and might get away with it.

Well, unlike other lowly developers, FB engineers know exactly what is and isn't the right kind of mistake to make in pursuit of a company's vision.

Someone who works at FB even came out and said so:

"Remember, what Facebook is doing has never been done before. There are going to be mistakes."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321420

So yeah, I think what that person is saying should be translated as:

"Please don't think twice about punishing rank-and-file FB engineers. We are so competent, all our mistakes have only been intentional ones."

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