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Facebook Portal – Privacy review

foundation.mozilla.org

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Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#11

Post by nannal »

tcd wrote: post #8
dpcan wrote: post #7

I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home. It has "hell no" written all over it. It's almost arrogant or bizarre that they would try to launch such a product given how people feel about Facebook and privacy. I suppose it's simply to satisfy shareholders who think Facebook needs to compete in this market???? It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assis…

People have purchased - and installed - Google Home (and Mini's) and Alexa's in their homes. They think they're "cute", and offer a valuable service to them. They are a microphone controlled by data raping giants. People use "Assistants" and enable full tracking technologies on their devices ("See how great it is Google has your every location on a map for the last decade"). People have not only accepted but embraced…

They don't need to deduce anything, I'm already doing that when I visit the bathroom.

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#12

Post by CivBase »

dpcan wrote: post #7

I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home. It has "hell no" written all over it. It's almost arrogant or bizarre that they would try to launch such a product given how people feel about Facebook and privacy. I suppose it's simply to satisfy shareholders who think Facebook needs to compete in this market???? It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assis…

> It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assistant space in my opinion.

I loved my Zune. I wouldn't touch a Portal with a 39.5' pole.

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#14

Post by _b8r0 »

sojmq wrote: post #13

Imagine giving your money to the Mozilla Corporation so they improve Firefox and they instead spend it on hiring copywriters for this girly blog.

I'm glad it's not just me. I looked at this and thought, "What the f*ck am I reading?"

Is it a review? Is it telling me it's secure? It's good? It's bad? What are the 5 stars for? Should I buy it? Should I not?

The page is just really badly put together and it's not really clear what I'm looking at.

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#15

Post by Nextgrid »

marsRoverDev wrote: post #9
FussyZeus wrote: post #2

Saw an advertisement for this in a theater some months back. The wife and I turned to each other and said "Hell no." She isn't even that security aware, it's just... why. What is this for? What problem does this solve? Our iPhones do this already without constant surveillance and probably have superior hardware. This feels much to me like Stadia did to Google: It's a company inserting itself into a position it didn't…

I would not go so far as to assume iPhones do not perform surveillance. What Tim Cook says is one thing, what the national security letter they've received says is another.

Surveillance limited to NSL-targeted people as an exception is still better than global surveillance for everyone as part of their business model.

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#16

Post by netsharc »

dpcan wrote: post #7

I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home. It has "hell no" written all over it. It's almost arrogant or bizarre that they would try to launch such a product given how people feel about Facebook and privacy. I suppose it's simply to satisfy shareholders who think Facebook needs to compete in this market???? It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assis…

I've seen TV ads for Portal and one version of it is a grandpa telling us viewers how great Portal is for connecting him and his grandkids, showing off the auto-pan feature (the kids ran around their living room and the device's camera followed them).

So I guess they're targeting non-techie elderlies for one.

I wonder if you're just in a bubble when you say what you say. I'm in my city's FB group for youths and one time they were doing some excursion where tickets were age-dependant (discount for under 26s). The admin asked the people wanting tickets to post their names and DOB, and there were maybe 50 replies to that post with the asked information...

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#17

Post by netsharc »

sojmq wrote: post #13

Imagine giving your money to the Mozilla Corporation so they improve Firefox and they instead spend it on hiring copywriters for this girly blog.

I read a comment a while ago that said, the Firefox Foundation has too much money and the executive committee has to look useful, so they've been coming up with stupid ideas for a few years now.

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#18

Post by sojmq »

_b8r0 wrote: post #14
sojmq wrote: post #13

Imagine giving your money to the Mozilla Corporation so they improve Firefox and they instead spend it on hiring copywriters for this girly blog.

I'm glad it's not just me. I looked at this and thought, "What the f*ck am I reading?" Is it a review? Is it telling me it's secure? It's good? It's bad? What are the 5 stars for? Should I buy it? Should I not? The page is just really badly put together and it's not really clear what I'm looking at.

The best part is the pointless poll that then uses a dark pattern to collect your email address to spam you if you want to look at the results

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#19

Post by danShumway »

tcd wrote: post #8
dpcan wrote: post #7

I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home. It has "hell no" written all over it. It's almost arrogant or bizarre that they would try to launch such a product given how people feel about Facebook and privacy. I suppose it's simply to satisfy shareholders who think Facebook needs to compete in this market???? It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assis…

People have purchased - and installed - Google Home (and Mini's) and Alexa's in their homes. They think they're "cute", and offer a valuable service to them. They are a microphone controlled by data raping giants. People use "Assistants" and enable full tracking technologies on their devices ("See how great it is Google has your every location on a map for the last decade"). People have not only accepted but embraced…

I don't think it is. The difference is that Gmail/Amazon aren't hated the same way as Facebook is. People aren't smart about surveillance, they're not smart enough to realize that giving Instagram access to their phone is a bad idea.

But, there are 2 perfectly capable home assistants on the market today that (right or wrong) aren't part of the same consumer-level narrative about privacy, and people like simple, straightforward, black-and-white narratives, like "Facebook cameras in your house are watching your child so that targeted ads can turn them into a nazi." That's a simple story, it's easy to remember and think about. Even ordinary, privacy-uneducated users like that story.

It's totally feasible to me that this device will flop due to privacy concerns. Scanning around quickly online, I can't see a single positive review (even from mainstream publications) that doesn't end with, "but of course Facebook is evil and you'd have to be stupid to trust them with a camera in your house."

I suspect Facebook just lost the narrative on this. They should have called it "Instagram Portal", and then the consumer situation would be completely different.

Most of my siblings have Alexa devices in their house. It's a privacy nightmare, but they don't care. Even so, none of them would be dumb enough to buy a Facebook portal. It's not even a sacrifice -- Alexa/Google work with more devices and have more features.

Re: Facebook Portal – Privacy review

#20

Post by earino »

This title is somewhat problematic. It makes it sound like the portal has "privacy not included" and yet that is the name of the blog. In fact, the Portal meets the Mozilla Foundation's "Minimum Security Standards". It gets a yes for encryption, security updates, strong password, manages vulnerabilities and a privacy policy!

This is honestly kind of cruddy. You can feel however you want to feel about Facebook, but this is misleading.

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