How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#1

Post by stfu » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 5:06 PM UTC

How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data
europe-v-facebook.org

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#2

Post by phreeza » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

I wonder if anyone has tried to do this with google?

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#3

Post by gburt » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 5:36 PM UTC

There doesn't appear to be any non-facebook.com data in the example PDFs -- i.e., no "you commented on TechCrunch" or "you visited TechCrunch which has our widgets".

I would suspect this means Facebook just simply did not provide it?

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#4

Post by dbbo » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 5:47 PM UTC

Is there a similar law in the United States? If so, I've never heard of it.

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#5

Post by cdh » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 5:49 PM UTC

Does anyone know if requests made by Americans are honored? I'm guessing we don't have the same privacy protections here in the US, but maybe I've assumed incorrectly?

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#6

Post by click170 » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 5:52 PM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #2

I wonder if anyone has tried to do this with google?

Google already provides a pretty good interface for exporting your data..

http://www.dataliberation.org/

Or, from your Google+ page, click on your picture in the top right corner, then Account Settings, then on the new page click on Data Liberation on the left hand side.

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#7

Post by jannes » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 6:04 PM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #2

I wonder if anyone has tried to do this with google?

They claim that they anonymize your data. For example Google Analytics data should be anonymized (i.e. they don't link the traffic to your Google account name or some cookie ID, but they do store your IP). If this is true, it means that they can't send anything like logs of your visited sites to you, because they can't link your identity to the correct IP addresses.

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#8

Post by techiferous » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 6:09 PM UTC

So let's say I launch TrackMyEatingHabits.com. If a user that happens to live in the UK signs up, they can send me a request for all of their data and I have to comply, right?

So this means that when I design the software for TrackMyEatingHabits.com, I should also be mindful to have a process (and data model) that makes it easy to locate this user data quickly, right?

Also, I should have in place processes to verify the identify of the requester too, right?

Or alternatively, I can just limit my market to the U.S.

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#9

Post by gilted » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 6:12 PM UTC

Thanks to the Google employee ring for voting this one up too, I found that the 5 breathless Facebook articles already on the front page weren't sufficiently satisfying my intellectual curiosity. Now you may proceed to transition into downvote mode.

I really hope one day pg changes it so that all votes on articles and comments are publicly available, so that we can run our own analysis' using it. It would be interesting to see how much of the content on HN has become dominated by these employee rings over time.

Re: How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

#10

Post by Loic » Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 6:18 PM UTC

techiferous wrote: post #8

So let's say I launch TrackMyEatingHabits.com. If a user that happens to live in the UK signs up, they can send me a request for all of their data and I have to comply, right? So this means that when I design the software for TrackMyEatingHabits.com, I should also be mindful to have a process (and data model) that makes it easy to locate this user data quickly, right? Also, I should have in place processes to verify…

If you are a US company operating a US website, you are not bound to the EU law in that regard. But if you launch trackwhatever.[EU top level domain] to better target these markets, you may need a EU address to get the domain. In that case, you may need to comply with the EU law.