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U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
11–20 of 122 posts
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#12I love this new FTC. Feels like they are on the side of the humans again.
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#13Don’t most websites prohibit someone from scraping and harvesting the data on them? Most recently, I can think of Yelp, Amazon, and GitHub prohibiting this, as well as the Aaron Swartz case.
“Prohibit” is an interesting word that in the world of public web publishing of data is actually pretty meaningless. Certainly companies take measures to prevent bulk scraping when they can detect it and have legal remedies if copyrighted or owned material is republished. But simply telling me I am prohibited to hold on to a copy of your site’s data is pretty meaningless when my browser caches your page and you want my browser to cache it to speed your site up.
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#14Recent related threads:
Facebook’s claims about the Ad Observer are wrong - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068359 - Aug 2021 (105 comments)
Facebook bans researchers who were investigating Facebook ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28063637 - Aug 2021 (77 comments)
AdObserver Blocked by Facebook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28059869 - Aug 2021 (46 comments)
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#15Don’t most websites prohibit someone from scraping and harvesting the data on them? Most recently, I can think of Yelp, Amazon, and GitHub prohibiting this, as well as the Aaron Swartz case.
Up until June 14th of this year, the ruling was that scraping is legal from the HiQ vs LinkedIn lawsuit[0]. While finding that link for you, I learned that since that date, the Supreme Court vacated the decision back to the lower courts in light of a new decision of theirs.[1] Now I don't think it's clear one way or the other just yet. Any lawyers here with an opinion on how this is going to go? I haven't found any a…
Well given all this and the consent decree, I'm kind of seeing why FB made this decision. If it's legal, let the FTC say so explicitly.
It's probably very bad strategy to allow the privacy leak, and then hope that the FTC agrees with your decision later. No one will be sanctioned for adhering too strictly to consent decrees, but you could be sanctioned for being too loose. So the choice is obvious in that light.
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#16Don’t most websites prohibit someone from scraping and harvesting the data on them? Most recently, I can think of Yelp, Amazon, and GitHub prohibiting this, as well as the Aaron Swartz case.
"most websites prohibit someone from scraping"
This weired mindset where corporations make law shouws up again.
The websites have no power to prohibit anything. If they make bytes avaliable, we may do with them as we please so long as its legal.
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#17“The FTC received no notice that Facebook would be publicly invoking our consent decree to justify terminating academic research earlier this week.” Of course they didn't. After you are fined 5b it's no surprise you go full on defensive. What's the alternative? Asking the ftc every single time what they should do? I'm no fan of Facebook but if they didn't stop the research they could be found guilty again for the exa…
I agree. I'm anything but a fan of Facebook, but in this case they seem to be in an f'ed if you do, f'ed if you don't-type of situation.
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#18“The FTC received no notice that Facebook would be publicly invoking our consent decree to justify terminating academic research earlier this week.” Of course they didn't. After you are fined 5b it's no surprise you go full on defensive. What's the alternative? Asking the ftc every single time what they should do? I'm no fan of Facebook but if they didn't stop the research they could be found guilty again for the exa…
> What's the alternative? Asking the ftc every single time what they should do?
Yes. That’s how the consent decree works.
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#19Don’t most websites prohibit someone from scraping and harvesting the data on them? Most recently, I can think of Yelp, Amazon, and GitHub prohibiting this, as well as the Aaron Swartz case.
"most websites prohibit someone from scraping" This weired mindset where corporations make law shouws up again. The websites have no power to prohibit anything. If they make bytes avaliable, we may do with them as we please so long as its legal.
They can't throw you in jail over it, but it's within their rights to stop sending you these bytes or kick you off their platform altogether.
If they'd try to prevent you from scraping third-party sites it would be making laws; setting up ground rules with their ToS and enforcing them is absolutely fine.
Re: U.S. FTC says Facebook misused privacy decree to shut down ad research
#20“The FTC received no notice that Facebook would be publicly invoking our consent decree to justify terminating academic research earlier this week.” Of course they didn't. After you are fined 5b it's no surprise you go full on defensive. What's the alternative? Asking the ftc every single time what they should do? I'm no fan of Facebook but if they didn't stop the research they could be found guilty again for the exa…
> Of course they didn't. After you are fined 5b it's no surprise you go full on defensive. What's the alternative?
Well I've never really been sanctioned by the law for anything significant, but I would imagine that if I was sanctioned by the law for something afterwards I would be mindful of that fact and try to avoid being sanctioned again?
But there's a big difference between me and Facebook and that's that I don't have a callous disregard for the law and well being of society.