We are sorry • Hacker News Board

Re: We are sorry

#181

Post by buff-a » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:33 AM UTC

hexis wrote: post #5

Key paragraph: "We believe you should have control when it comes to sharing your personal information. We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path." Great save for…

"we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers"

Since we're talking about a fantastic breach of trust, I'd like clarification that all copies of all uploaded contact information have been deleted from all servers (even ones that one could argue are other people's), and from all backup media, and further that no effort will ever be made to try to recover this information.

Because, I'm sorry, but anybody who thinks its OK to violate someone's privacy like this is at best someone who is able to easily justify unethical behavior because they think their business might depend on it and at worst a sociopath.

There is not a human on earth who would not object if someone else picked up their phone and started looking through the contacts.

Re: We are sorry

#182

Post by ghshephard » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:35 AM UTC

tjoff wrote: post #119

Only problem is: It was not a mistake. They did this only to cover their asses and that has been the only concern they've ever had. That they already tried to push the opt-in was of course only in fear of what just happened. I'm sorry, I'm all for public apologies and I truly believe that it is in times like these companies have a chance to really prove themselves and really make a mishap something positive (and come…

I suspect, if you probe more deeply, that some of the Path developers where familiar with how this problem is normally solved and just copied a common design pattern. A large number of IOS applications supposedly upload the contact list to make it easier to find friends server side - I further suspect that many, many of the popular social apps do this.

Hopefully at least Five good things will come out of this:

  1) Social Apps immediately remove the "upload contact list code from their
     apps"
  2) Social Apps come up with a more privacy clueful way of searching for 
     your friends.
  3) Social Apps (all apps, ideally) focus more on user privacy.
  4) Apple requires permission to be granted before allowing an app to read 
     your contact list.
  5) Apple is more explicit about what app developers are _not_ allowed to do 
     when transmitting information off the IOS Device
  6) The App review process adds a check to see if certain user private fields 
     are accessed, (Contact, Photos) - and ensures (through audit, or 
     confirming with the developers) that private information is not 
     being uploaded without opt-in.

If some or more of these things happen, then I'm actually happy what Path did was publicized. They've deleted 100% of the contact information off their servers - people now have to opt-in to add it back in.

Re: We are sorry

#183

Post by yeggeyeggeyegge » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:39 AM UTC

hexis wrote: post #5

Key paragraph: "We believe you should have control when it comes to sharing your personal information. We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path." Great save for…

Key giveaway to their untrustworthiness still: "and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path"

TO FEEL, as in "we still don't give a shit whether you actually _ARE_ completely in control of your information"

Re: We are sorry

#184

Post by ghshephard » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:40 AM UTC

yeggeyeggeyegge wrote: post #175

tjoff wrote: post #119

Only problem is: It was not a mistake. They did this only to cover their asses and that has been the only concern they've ever had. That they already tried to push the opt-in was of course only in fear of what just happened. I'm sorry, I'm all for public apologies and I truly believe that it is in times like these companies have a chance to really prove themselves and really make a mishap something positive (and come…

You are right. And I am not touching Path with a ten foot pole. Not in hell. What annoys me is that Apple has caused a few hours of my life to be wasted on this shit. And has me deeply worried about what other crap is uploading all my contacts information into their hush hush secure database. And also that they allowed this piece of free advertisement seeking shit company to get through their fabled review system. He…

You do know, that many other social apps do the same thing as Path, right?

Re: We are sorry

#185

Post by yeggeyeggeyegge » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:42 AM UTC

naner wrote: post #143

hexis wrote: post #5

Key paragraph: "We believe you should have control when it comes to sharing your personal information. We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path." Great save for…

Great save for a bad mistake. Still leaves me with a shitty feeling. Basically this boils down to "sorry we got caught", they knew what they were doing. Not to single out Path, a massive number of apps are guilty of this behavior.

>Not to single out Path, a massive number of apps are guilty of this behavior.

And so is Apple. I am alarmed that any 2 bit app can access and upload all my personal contact information for any use they want to.

Re: We are sorry

#186

Post by yeggeyeggeyegge » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:53 AM UTC

huhtenberg wrote: post #123

So what changed really? Yesterday morning Path thought it was perfectly OK to scrape user's Address Book behind their back, and now they suddenly acquired moral backbone and ethics? Please give me a break. What they did today is the only sensible thing there was to try and save the company, so they did it, but should they be commended for that? Hell, no. Would you commend a landlord for dismounting a hidden camera in…

> Would you commend a landlord for dismounting a hidden camera in your bathroom? Doubt it.

Woah, woah, nice analogy. Excepting what Path did is even worse. They also retain(ed?) your bathroom activity photos forever and can do what they please with it.

Re: We are sorry

#187

Post by freshhawk » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:56 AM UTC

hexis wrote: post #5

Key paragraph: "We believe you should have control when it comes to sharing your personal information. We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path." Great save for…

Hardly. It's good PR maybe.

Why would I not trust them with my contact info but trust that they actually have deleted it and there are no copies.

Also, these are developers, there are copies, it's a near certainty.

Re: We are sorry

#188

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 4:59 AM UTC

yabai wrote: post #179

yeggeyeggeyegge wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. And I am not touching Path with a ten foot pole. Not in hell. What annoys me is that Apple has caused a few hours of my life to be wasted on this shit. And has me deeply worried about what other crap is uploading all my contacts information into their hush hush secure database. And also that they allowed this piece of free advertisement seeking shit company to get through their fabled review system. He…

Doesn't this illustrate once again that community policing always works better than corporate policing?

This illustrates rather than you should think twice before using a service you do not know much about. You can always make rules and there will always be ways to go around them. Personal responsibility and awareness is what makes the difference in the end. Would you eat just anything given to you if you ignore where it comes from and how it's made?

Re: We are sorry

#189

Post by csallen » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 5:02 AM UTC

yeggeyeggeyegge wrote: post #180

csallen wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is, there are innumerable factors that affect people's decision-making in situations like this. The ability to decide whether or not a course of action is ethical is greatly affected by what your competitors are doing, groupthink, incentives, time pressures, etc. I could keep going. And yes, your ability to "get away with it" is also a factor. Now you may say, "Who cares what the factors are? A wrong decisio…

>The ability to decide whether or not a course of action is ethical is greatly affected by what your competitors are doing, groupthink, incentives, time pressures, etc. No, its not. You do not kill a person over any of these. You do not kill someones trust in you over any of these. >I cannot be satisfied with the run-of-the-mill, "They did it because they're evil and untrustworthy" response. Then how about that they…

  No, its not. You do not kill a person over any of
  these... they are shitty crappy company who are
  unconcerned about ethical matters of things

You're oversimplifying human behavior. It's not as simple as "bad people do bad things." There are COUNTLESS examples in which large groups of decent people have acted in horrifying, deplorable ways. And our psychologists know enough to reproduce this type of behavior in a lab. Read about the Milgram experiments, in which researchers were able to convince average American citizens to knowingly torture each other for almost no reason.

  I am alarmed, you are now equating cheating under
  the right circumstances, to planned and intentional
  thieving under business as usual.

Circumstances are circumstance, whether we're talking about business or school. In this particular circumstance, you have Path participating in a market where "the police" Apple simply allows this behavior to go on. And where there's tremendous social proof, because everybody else is doing it. And where there is tremendous groupthink, because the only people they consulted with were themselves. And where there was tremendous incentive, because they want their company to be successful. And where they can attempt to rationalize their decision by saying, "Well we won't use the data for anything bad" without any oversight. All the ducks are in a row. It's just the type of perfectly disastrous environment that could entice even the most noble of people to make bad decisions.

  irresponsible, irresponsible? What shit are you
  smoking chief? I have zero responsibility for their
  actions, or the pubic outrage against it, or my own
  reaction to crap. Let them rot in hell for all I care.

It's simple: Either you care more about verbally abusing people who behave poorly, or you care more about preventing poor behavior in the future. If you claim to belong to the former group then fine, keep doing what your'e doing. But it never fixed anything in the past, and it won't do so in the future. But if we want to bring about real change, then we're going to have to concentrate on the immoral systems that allow and incentivize bad behavior.

Re: We are sorry

#190

Post by Kuiper » Thu, Feb 09, 2012, 5:03 AM UTC

Tossrock wrote: post #147

Kuiper wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to pick on semantics, but wanted to clarify this because I initially was confused when reading your post: you meant "immoral," correct? "Amoral" does not mean "morally wrong," but rather refers to things which are morally agnostic. It actually seems to me that Path believed their actions were amoral, that is, not registering anywhere on the moral spectrum (neither right nor wrong).

Well, as long as we're picking on semantics, that's not what amoral means. Amoral means lacking _regard for_ morality. You use it to describe a person or other entity that is unconcerned with the morality of their actions. Which fits Path pretty well.

Both uses of "amoral" are correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoral

"Amorality, the absence of morality; for example, a stone, a chair, or the sky may be considered amoral",

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amoral

"not involving questions of right or wrong; without moral quality; neither moral nor immoral."