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How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data

europe-v-facebook.org

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

#41

Post by ma2rten »

sek wrote: post #28
gus_massa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also some technical problems with deletion. For example: What to do if the post has subposts from other user? What happens is someone steals your account and erases all your posts? And, when you click on the delete, should they erase the information: * From the cache * From the database (not only mark it for deletion) * From the weekly/monthly/yearly backup * From the old backup system that is not longer in…

Well i don't expect them to do it instantly, but just "never" deleting anything is what bugs me. There is no necessity to change backups, just to remove it from the current database and when the last backup is outdated it is gone. You can't come up with a realistic example that cannot be solved by 6 months old backups.

The main reason why facebook and many other websites do this is risk minimalization. What if some spam filter goes wild and deletes half of all profiles?

EDIT: That was just meant to be an example. I believe it's generally a good practice to use a delete flag as the default option (unless there are legal or serious privacy concerns), because it makes you sleep better at night. I don't know if it justified in this case, but I just wanted to point out that they did not do it just out of pure evilness.

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

#42

Post by spooneybarger »

mattmanser wrote: post #14
gilted wrote: post #9

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 interest…

Woah, less of the crazy conspiracy theories. If you're so out of the loop that you didn't know about f8 and 'frictionless sharing' then read up about those things and viola, you'll realize why these stories are all popping up the rankings. FB is creepy and keeps getting creepier. Keep your tinfoil hat on though if you want.

Some of the other recent posts about facebook have similar comments from low karma accounts. I'm just writing it off as some facebook employee ring.

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

#43

Post by zatara »

rmc wrote: post #21
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…

No, probably not. Usually you only have to abide by a countries laws if your server are based there, or you have a company incorporated there. If you have a US company with servers hosted in the US, acbd an EU citizen uses it, and claims you are breaking their laws, then there its nothing the courts in that country can do to make you abide them. To put it another way, are you worried if your US company breaks Chinese…

Does this apply to patents as well?

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

#44

Post by burgerbrain »

ma2rten wrote: post #41
sek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well i don't expect them to do it instantly, but just "never" deleting anything is what bugs me. There is no necessity to change backups, just to remove it from the current database and when the last backup is outdated it is gone. You can't come up with a realistic example that cannot be solved by 6 months old backups.

The main reason why facebook and many other websites do this is risk minimalization. What if some spam filter goes wild and deletes half of all profiles? EDIT: That was just meant to be an example. I believe it's generally a good practice to use a delete flag as the default option (unless there are legal or serious privacy concerns), because it makes you sleep better at night. I don't know if it justified in this cas…

It would hardly be a great programming feat to create 3 states: 'good', 'marked as spam, hidden', and 'deleted, remove from the DB at earliest convienence'.

Hell, my mail client has been doing that as long as I can remember.

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

#45

Post by nextparadigms »

sek wrote: post #13

Unbelievable: http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html They delete sh*t, if you delete your posts they don't remove them from their databases. This makes me really angry, there is a reason why i delete this stuff. I can't believe this, they have a responsibility. Edit: WTF http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html#Mac... This is maybe the most frightening: http://europe-v-facebook.org/E…

"Note: According to facebook’s privacy policy, messages on facebook can not be deleted anymore. If you click on ‘delete’ the messages will only be invisible to you. US law enforcement agencies can access this information at there own liking, without judicial review."

That last one is scary indeed. People were arguing a while ago whether these companies should keep data only for 6 months, or for a year, or 18 months - but Facebook is simply keeping it forever. Even 10 years from now law enforcement could verify your Facebook data.

Facebook Timeline should give them a nice UI, too, in case you don't delete anything. But they would still want to dig deep. I wonder if Facebook built a special Timeline product for law enforcement to see everything about everyone. Remember when they admitted a while ago that they provide law enforcement a special software for the data? I wonder if the idea of Timeline for users comes from that.

Julian Assange was dead-on that Facebook is the biggest spying machine.

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

#47

Post by tonfa »

rmc wrote: post #21
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…

No, probably not. Usually you only have to abide by a countries laws if your server are based there, or you have a company incorporated there. If you have a US company with servers hosted in the US, acbd an EU citizen uses it, and claims you are breaking their laws, then there its nothing the courts in that country can do to make you abide them. To put it another way, are you worried if your US company breaks Chinese…

Like most legal matter it's a bit more complex than that. As far as I know, you can be targeted by foreign laws with a .com domain, and servers physically in the US.

If you specifically target/advertize (e.g. with translated interfaces) your services to EU citizens, a judge might decide that EU laws apply to you.

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

#48

Post by tripzilch »

avar wrote: post #34

Facebook knows too much about us, let's all send them a scanned copy of our passport!

You're allowed to (and should) black out your photograph and your social security number, they don't need those for ID. Only your government, your employer and a list of government-sanctioned organisations can require social security numbers for ID purposes. the rules for photo ID are even more strict.

Additionally you should write in big letters over the scan "Request to access Facebook Data ", so that nobody else can use the scan of your ID-card for anything else.

The rest of the data, Facebook already knows (name, date of birth) or is useless (passport/ID document number).

Source: https://pim.bof.nl/gebruikers/geef-niet-meer-dan-nodig/ (Dutch)

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

#49

Post by Helianthus »

toadstone wrote: post #46

I don't understand this community. I thought you were wolves, but here you are taking the part of the sheep. Instead of being outraged, you should be trying to get your own piece of the data pie. Every single web startup is doing exactly that.

I don't think you understand communities. People acting in a group will act similarly and be derided by you as 'sheep.' It it is the type of thing that motivates group action that determines whether you think group members are 'wolves.'

Wolves move in packs, too.

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