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Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

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Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#51

Post by 3am »

alexgartrell wrote: post #47
3am wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The abuse of Occam's razor in this discussion warrants that level of sarcasm. And speaking of obscured points, what are you trying to say? Are you saying Facebook is _not_ working on an ad network that does cross domain tracking of users and displays ads based on social graph data, and this is simply a defensive patent? Or are you saying they are developing this feature, but we should trust your company to not abuse…

All I was trying to say was that there are reasons beyond desire to implement a product that would make a company file for a patent. I don't know anything about any product designed to do this, but I also don't know everything about every product at Facebook (it'd be impossible to get my own work done if that were the case).

That's fair, but you can see why everyone is skeptical that is the reason behind this patent filing?

Shame on me, but I don't follow Facebook's announcements about privacy enough - it never even occurred to me they'd deny something like thi Just like Google started out monetizing the semantic graph (and providing them an superior search engine in exchanges is their goal. I thought that was the whole point, and the reason behind the $80B valuation (ads served in a Google like way using the social graph instead of the semantic graph). It just follows that this would require a certain degree of integration between ad partners and user tracking.

ps -I'm not trying to single you out and lay the blame for all my gripes with Facebook on you, I hope it doesn't seem that way.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#52

Post by jhferris3 »

qx24b wrote: post #16
jeggers5 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or, a different browser on a proxy :P

Only so long as facebook doesn't use flash cookies as those are cross browser. (Or you constantly delete flash cookies)

afaik, facebook does not use flash cookies. In the initial blog post that caused the cookie uproar, I thought he mentioned that? Otherwise maybe it was somewhere else I read it.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#53

Post by fauigerzigerk »

alexgartrell wrote: post #50
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, my point is not that I don't trust Facebook and I don't think they have made a single honest mistake. My point is that their intentions and interests are a logical consequence of their business model. Claiming to have no interest in collecting as much information as possible about their users is absurd because that is what they sell. The reality is also plain to see for anyone who knows the least bit about web te…

Then why didn't you say that? You'd have cleanly communicated your point with minimal confusion, and it would have let us skip out on the snarky stuff. Seriously, I'm not trying to be a Facebook PR drone here, I just want HN to not suck, and one of the reasons it didn't suck before was the lack of snarky crap.

I would take your concerns about HN quality a lot more seriously if this wasn't about sarcasm directed at your own employer and if it wasn't about a story that exemplifies the truly breathtaking duplicity of the corporation that pays your bills.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#54

Post by anatoly »

nomdeplume wrote: post #27

After seeing what it was, part of me was thinking "is this a spoof site pretending to be real?" while another part was thinking "this is too well written to be a joke." I wonder why they chose to file for the patent right when they were getting bad press for it. Maybe they were hoping it would go unnoticed and filed after discovery so noone else could scoop it up?

They filed in February. It is a (notable) coincidence that the application became public just now.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#55

Post by earplug »

Bud wrote: post #31
gyardley wrote: post #17

It's perfectly possible for Facebook to not track users at the moment and simultaneously prepare for a future where this is not only acceptable, it's expected. Facebook has placed a long-term bet that people will willingly share pretty much everything they do. When they file patents like this, they're skating where the puck is headed, not where it is now.

Yeah. It's also possible, and indeed true, that Facebook is lying through its teeth, aggressively tracking now while claiming not to, introducing ever-more-pervasive and invasive tracking without notifying users or giving them an informed choice in the matter, thus forcibly paving the way for the future that will place them in the most powerful position. Let's be real. Facebook has not "placed a long-term bet"; they…

If Facebook is "lying through its teeth" it will only hurt them in the long run. What is even more realistic is that they are getting (have become) so big that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. That becomes typical in a large organization.

This could also simply be a way for them to protect themselves in the future, as we've all seen just how heated the patent space is becoming for the big boys...

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#56

Post by jerf »

asto wrote: post #29
tokenadult wrote: post #21

As Confucius said, in one of his most famous take-downs, "始吾於人也、聽其言而信其行、今吾於人也、聽其言而觀其行。At first in dealing with people, I would hear their words and trust their deeds, but now my way of dealing with people is to hear their words and observe their deeds."

"hear their words"? Easier said than done. Here's a blog post I wrote about how the things they say aren't very consistent. http://blog.arunbalan.in/2011/09/28/hey-facebook-ive-got-a-q...

There is the old saying "Actions speak louder than words." But that saying predates mass media, and the existence of schools in which one can learn marketing and political speech as actual formal degrees, and the rise of postmodernism and its ethic of relative truth making it permissible to pretty much say anything in the pursuit of a goal.

I would update it as simply "Actions speak, words don't." Perhaps somebody can come up with a more pithy version. But it's amazing the amount of BS that you can cut through with this metric, and just how unbelievably worthless the torrent of words coming from our politicians and businesses are. I mean, worthless on a philosophically profound level. Astonishing amounts of effort are burned on ensuring that words are as disconnected from reality as possible.

Facebook will say whatever they think will advance their agenda, only very loosely constrained by laws and with many educated people who know exactly how to skirt those laws with precisely-constructed vague statements that sound like one thing but legally say another. (The easiest and most popular are statements carefully qualified to in fact say nothing at all.) Meanwhile, their actions are clear as day: Track everything, expand their tracking as much as possible, and worry about the details later.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#57

Post by PakG1 »

earplug wrote: post #55
Bud wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It's also possible, and indeed true, that Facebook is lying through its teeth, aggressively tracking now while claiming not to, introducing ever-more-pervasive and invasive tracking without notifying users or giving them an informed choice in the matter, thus forcibly paving the way for the future that will place them in the most powerful position. Let's be real. Facebook has not "placed a long-term bet"; they…

If Facebook is "lying through its teeth" it will only hurt them in the long run. What is even more realistic is that they are getting (have become) so big that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. That becomes typical in a large organization. This could also simply be a way for them to protect themselves in the future, as we've all seen just how heated the patent space is becoming for the big boys…

It only hurts them in the long run if they're wrong about what people want. There have been many cases in the past where people raged against something new they didn't want, but the long term view demonstrated that they actually did want it. Potentially scary if this is one of those situations, of course. Certainly, people should have seen the writing on the wall long before this.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#58

Post by arcs »

This feels like blatant sensationalism to me.

This particular patent describes the process for 3rd party sites to tell Facebook about something the user did (new Open Graph API, anyone?), which subsequently can be shown as an ad to the user's friends, i.e. "Your friend blah has bought something on This Service, do you want to do so too?" (some peer context for ads, which facebook already tries to do for things like fanning pages).

This is quite different from the meaning implied by this post, which the first 2 quotes were addressing, that Facebook tracks and correlates browsing patterns of users across the internet without their consent.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#59

Post by alexgartrell »

3am wrote: post #51
alexgartrell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I was trying to say was that there are reasons beyond desire to implement a product that would make a company file for a patent. I don't know anything about any product designed to do this, but I also don't know everything about every product at Facebook (it'd be impossible to get my own work done if that were the case).

That's fair, but you can see why everyone is skeptical that is the reason behind this patent filing? Shame on me, but I don't follow Facebook's announcements about privacy enough - it never even occurred to me they'd deny something like thi Just like Google started out monetizing the semantic graph (and providing them an superior search engine in exchanges is their goal. I thought that was the whole point, and the re…

Last week, everyone lost their shit about Facebook's logged out cookies. Your traditional megacorp is going to say "oh well, so it goes, repeat the party line" and move on. Internally though, this spurred some engineers to actually investigate it, which lead to an audit, which lead to the discovery that we'd forgotten to delete the user id out of the cookies, which lead to a fix and a blog post and a clarification of our policies.

So, beyond understanding the skepticism, I actually think it's really important, and personally[0] encourage it. We're not going to get better at privacy if people don't jump our shit over every perceived misstep, because we've either failed to make the right decision, or we've failed to communicate our decision effectively.

All I'd ask is that we try to keep this communication as high signal as possible, and avoid going down roads with no plausible resolution[1]. I think that's best for Facebook, the internet, and discussion in general at HN.

[0] I speak for myself and not my employer, Facebook Inc, blah blah blah.

[1] If you think Zuckerberg is evil and that we're all just going to try to screw you, there's nothing I (or anyone else) can tell you that is going to change your mind.

Re: Facebook claims it does not track users, but files patent to do same

#60

Post by jellicle »

earplug wrote: post #55
Bud wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It's also possible, and indeed true, that Facebook is lying through its teeth, aggressively tracking now while claiming not to, introducing ever-more-pervasive and invasive tracking without notifying users or giving them an informed choice in the matter, thus forcibly paving the way for the future that will place them in the most powerful position. Let's be real. Facebook has not "placed a long-term bet"; they…

If Facebook is "lying through its teeth" it will only hurt them in the long run. What is even more realistic is that they are getting (have become) so big that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. That becomes typical in a large organization. This could also simply be a way for them to protect themselves in the future, as we've all seen just how heated the patent space is becoming for the big boys…

> If Facebook is "lying through its teeth" it will only hurt them in the long run.

Because after all, we see corporations being punished every day for lying by the powerful and effective consumer protection organizations in the United States.

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