Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#191

Post by pdonis » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 2:05 PM UTC

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #185

pdonis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should users have rights in this situation, other than the right to stop using the service? I understand why it would be nice if they did, but why should they? Why is it am imperative?

It depends where you are but there are certain legal rights that no terms of use can waive. They're set up as a minimum standard of acceptable behaviour that someone should be able to expect by default and that there is no reason why a company shouldn't / can't adhere to. Generally they're around physical protection from harm, though they do extend to other things (including Data Protection in Europe). Why should the…

people can't be expected to take a detailed look at every product and service they might use to assess it fully, that would simply be too time consuming, so you set a basic standard for prevention of harm

So basically, you're saying people should trade trust in one third party (the service provider) for trust in another third party (whoever sets and enforces the basic standard). I can understand why people may choose to do this (though in many cases I don't think the second third party is any more reliable than the first), but I don't see it as an improvement. I don't think FB cares about whatever legal standards are in place; to them that's just a cost of doing business. But they do care about losing users.

can you imagine what the likes of Facebook or Exxon or whoever might do without them.

Sure, and I can also imagine people not using FB or Exxon (many people boycotted Exxon for years after the Valdez spill, IIRC). Also, I can turn the question around: can you imagine what those who are trusted to enforce standards of behavior might do once they know the public trusts them and won't question what they do? How good a job did regulators do at enforcing standards of behavior on investment banks?

And before you ask, I do not use FB, precisely because I don't trust them to take care of my data. And it's not just FB; I don't trust Google to take care of my data, which is why I don't use gmail, for example, or any other Google services except search and maps. I don't expect anyone to take care of my data unless I'm paying them, as a customer, to do that--and even then I watch them.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#192

Post by sushantsharma » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

angry-hacker wrote: post #139

sushantsharma wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just uninstalled facebook from my android phone. The facebook contacts and their information is still being shown in my phone contacts list. I am not sure if it will be deleted in future (during some sync operation). If that happens, I may install it back again. In the latter scenario, merging the contacts however will be a pain.

I tried the same and contacts disappeared.

Okay, I tried to look some more. I discovered that there is a "Facebook" option in the accounts list that I can add on my phone (Motorola Droid Bionic). This facebook account was responsible for the facebook contacts in my address book. So, I went to the facebook website and revoked its permission to access my account.

Its been more than a day now, and the facebook contacts are still there in my phone. May be you want to add the facebook account, and then revoke its permission from the facebook website. I think this will leave your facebook accounts in your phone.

I will update this post if my contacts disappear in near future.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#193

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 3:06 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #191

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends where you are but there are certain legal rights that no terms of use can waive. They're set up as a minimum standard of acceptable behaviour that someone should be able to expect by default and that there is no reason why a company shouldn't / can't adhere to. Generally they're around physical protection from harm, though they do extend to other things (including Data Protection in Europe). Why should the…

people can't be expected to take a detailed look at every product and service they might use to assess it fully, that would simply be too time consuming, so you set a basic standard for prevention of harm So basically, you're saying people should trade trust in one third party (the service provider) for trust in another third party (whoever sets and enforces the basic standard). I can understand why people may choose…

No, that's not what I'm saying. It's not one or the other, these constraints don't prevent the possibility that people may leave if they don't like a service and what it does, they're an additional guard against the very worst potential abuses.

I'm not saying that because company X conforms with the (very light) regulation in place that they're to be trusted, just that I see benefit in having two forms of protection in place.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#194

Post by pdonis » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 6:02 PM UTC

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #193

pdonis wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people can't be expected to take a detailed look at every product and service they might use to assess it fully, that would simply be too time consuming, so you set a basic standard for prevention of harm So basically, you're saying people should trade trust in one third party (the service provider) for trust in another third party (whoever sets and enforces the basic standard). I can understand why people may choose…

No, that's not what I'm saying. It's not one or the other, these constraints don't prevent the possibility that people may leave if they don't like a service and what it does, they're an additional guard against the very worst potential abuses. I'm not saying that because company X conforms with the (very light) regulation in place that they're to be trusted, just that I see benefit in having two forms of protection…

You're assuming that there is an actual net benefit to having the second form of protection. I don't think there is. It may seem like a short-term benefit if some regulator actually catches, say, Facebook in the act of misusing people's data; but the long-term effect is that people believe that they can actually trust a company with their data when they're not a paying customer (or even, beyond a certain point, when the are a paying customer). And since the long-term outcome of any regulatory scheme is regulatory capture, sooner or later FB will just be buying the regulations they want, and the so-called protection won't be there any more. Again, I refer you to the economy since 2008.