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Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

malwarebytes.com

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Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#61

Post by kubb »

lemonberry wrote: post #36
kubb wrote: post #6

Whenever you think of a court versus Facebook, imagine one of these mini mice trying to stick it to a polar bear. Or a goblin versus a dragon, or a fly versus an elephant. These companies are for the most part effectively outside of the law. The only time they feel pressure is when they can lose market share, and there's risk of their platform being blocked in a jurisdiction. That's it.

The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts. I really don't get it and frankly, find it kind of disturbing. I know people that don't see anything wrong with Meta so they keep using it. And that's fine! Your actions seem to align with your stated values. I get human fallibility. I've been human for awhile now, and wow, have I made…

Voting with your feet doesn't work if you don't have a place to go. People are afraid of losing their connections, which are some of the most precious things we have. Doesn't matter if it's an illusion, that's enough. Zuck is holding us hostage on our most basic human instincts. I think that's fucked up.

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#62

Post by lazide »

hobs wrote: post #30
lazide wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once ran across Zuckerberg in a Palo Alto cafe. I only noticed him (I was in the process of ordering a sandwich, and don’t really care about shit like that) because he was being ‘eeeeeeee’d’ by a couple of random women that he didn’t seem to know. He seemed pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. One of them had a stroller which she was profoundly ignoring during the whole thing, which I found a bit disturbing.…

It's not the only way. The oppressed do not need to become the oppressor, its just the simplest rut for the wheel to turn in.

Sure, they can stay the oppressed?

Using the entropic model you seem to indicate (which I also favor), us vs them seems to be the lowest energy state.

It’s certainly possible to not be there at any given time, but seems to require a specific and somewhat unique set of circumstances, which are not the most energetically stable.

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#63

Post by mzajc »

cnity wrote: post #41
throwaway290 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they do then is create an app where location is necessary, make that app spin up a localhost server, then add js to facebook and every site with a like button to phone that localhost and basically deanon everyone.

How could this possibly work without port forwarding?

2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169115.

Of course Facebook's JS won't add itself to websites, so half of the blame goes to webmasters willingly sending malware to browsers.

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#64

Post by cindyllm »

bell-cot wrote: post #47

For those disinclined to read the article... > [...] users, regularly answered highly intimate questions. These ranged from the timing and comfort level of menstrual cycles, through to mood swings and preferred birth control methods, and their level of satisfaction with their sex life and romantic relationships. The app even asked when users had engaged in sexual activity and whether they were trying to get pregnant.…

[dead]

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#65

Post by everdrive »

setsewerd wrote: post #24
everdrive wrote: post #10

Don't use apps. It's a simple as that. 95% of the time they are not worth the incredible privacy invasion they impose on users.

Pardon my ignorance, but can't you just solve this by disabling location permissions, etc for a given app?

You can -- the real problem here is that each app could violate your privacy in different ways. Unless you break TLS and inspect all the traffic coming from an app (and, do this over time since the reality of what data is sent will change over time) then you don't really know what your apps are stealing from you. For sure, many apps are quite egregious in this regard while some are legitimately benign. But, do you as a user have a real way to know this authoritatively, and to keep up with changes in the ecosystem? My argument would be that even security researchers don't have time to really do a thorough job here, and users are forced to err on the side of caution.

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#66

Post by kubb »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15
kubb wrote: post #6

Whenever you think of a court versus Facebook, imagine one of these mini mice trying to stick it to a polar bear. Or a goblin versus a dragon, or a fly versus an elephant. These companies are for the most part effectively outside of the law. The only time they feel pressure is when they can lose market share, and there's risk of their platform being blocked in a jurisdiction. That's it.

Everybody blames facebook, noone blames the legislators and the courts. Stuff like this could easily make them pay multi-billion dollar fines, stuff that affects more users maybe even in the trillion range. When government workers come pick up servers, chairs and projectors from company buildings to sell at an auction, because there is not enough liquid value in the company to pay the fines, they (well, the others) w…

Don't get me wrong, I don't "blame Facebook". I lament the environment that empowers Facebook to exist and do harm. These companies should be gutted by the state, but they won't because they pump the S&P.

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#67

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

lemonberry wrote: post #36
kubb wrote: post #6

Whenever you think of a court versus Facebook, imagine one of these mini mice trying to stick it to a polar bear. Or a goblin versus a dragon, or a fly versus an elephant. These companies are for the most part effectively outside of the law. The only time they feel pressure is when they can lose market share, and there's risk of their platform being blocked in a jurisdiction. That's it.

The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts. I really don't get it and frankly, find it kind of disturbing. I know people that don't see anything wrong with Meta so they keep using it. And that's fine! Your actions seem to align with your stated values. I get human fallibility. I've been human for awhile now, and wow, have I made…

Eh, I care and I don't do it, but my wife does. I do not agree with her choices in that area and voice the concerns in a way that I hoped would speak to her, but it does not work as it is now a deeply ingrained habit.

I, too, have vices she tolerates so I don't push as hard as I otherwise would have, but I would argue it is not inconsistency. It is a question of what level of compromise is acceptable.

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#68

Post by bossyTeacher »

lemonberry wrote: post #36
kubb wrote: post #6

Whenever you think of a court versus Facebook, imagine one of these mini mice trying to stick it to a polar bear. Or a goblin versus a dragon, or a fly versus an elephant. These companies are for the most part effectively outside of the law. The only time they feel pressure is when they can lose market share, and there's risk of their platform being blocked in a jurisdiction. That's it.

The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts. I really don't get it and frankly, find it kind of disturbing. I know people that don't see anything wrong with Meta so they keep using it. And that's fine! Your actions seem to align with your stated values. I get human fallibility. I've been human for awhile now, and wow, have I made…

> The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts.

They care as much as people who claim to care about animals but still eat them, people who claim to love their wives and still beat/cheat them. Your actions are the sole embodiment of your beliefs

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#69

Post by paintbox »

gruez wrote: post #58
PunchTornado wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The app people were sending user data to meta with no restrictions on its use And then meta accessed it. So unless you put restrictions on data, meta is going to access it. Don't you think it should be the other way around? Meta to ask for permission? Then we wouldn't have this sort of thing.

Do you think AWS should ask for permission before processing some random B2C app user's data?

From the article: "The jury ruled that Meta intentionally “eavesdropped on and/or recorded their conversations by using an electronic device,” and that it did so without consent."

If AWS wanted to eavesdrop and/or record conversations of some random B2C app user, for sure they would need to ask for permission.

Re: Meta accessed women's health data from Flo app without consent, says court

#70

Post by gruez »

paintbox wrote: post #69
gruez wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think AWS should ask for permission before processing some random B2C app user's data?

From the article: "The jury ruled that Meta intentionally “eavesdropped on and/or recorded their conversations by using an electronic device,” and that it did so without consent." If AWS wanted to eavesdrop and/or record conversations of some random B2C app user, for sure they would need to ask for permission.

If you read the court documents, "eavesdropped on and/or recorded" basically meant "flo used facebook's SDK to sent analytics events to facebook". It's not like they were MITMing connections to flo's servers.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/55370837/1/frasco-v-flo...

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