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Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

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Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#51

Post by greggman »

steevdave wrote: post #43
TomGullen wrote: post #40

To me, this is just standard privacy hyperbole that rears it's head every now and then. Anyone remember the headlines several years ago when "Google 'scans' your emails to serve targetted ads'? When was the last time you heard someone complain about that anymore? No one does, because it doesn't matter. Why should me sharing a link via a PM and my action be aggregated into an anonymous number worry me? How is the argu…

While I don't use facebook's messaging except on the extremely rare occasion that someone messages me when I have their web page open, I don't think sharing a URL with someone means I LIKE the content, there are many different reasons to share a URL.

Agreed: Have you see this site (http://sucks.com) it sucks. (PS: I haven't actually checked out that URL. Might be NSFW)

No, I don't want facebook to "Like" links for me if I didn't explicitly say I liked them.

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#52

Post by greggman »

TomGullen wrote: post #40

To me, this is just standard privacy hyperbole that rears it's head every now and then. Anyone remember the headlines several years ago when "Google 'scans' your emails to serve targetted ads'? When was the last time you heard someone complain about that anymore? No one does, because it doesn't matter. Why should me sharing a link via a PM and my action be aggregated into an anonymous number worry me? How is the argu…

It's not the same thing.

Let's say I'm a republicrat and I'm furiously sending private messages with links to democan sites showing my friends how evil I think they are. Except now I'm told every one of my links as just made those republicrat sites more liked an I'm helping make it look like they are more popular than they really are.

Scanning emails to serve you ads does not leak information to the public indirectly. Increasing like counts does.

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#53

Post by magicseth »

greggman wrote: post #52
TomGullen wrote: post #40

To me, this is just standard privacy hyperbole that rears it's head every now and then. Anyone remember the headlines several years ago when "Google 'scans' your emails to serve targetted ads'? When was the last time you heard someone complain about that anymore? No one does, because it doesn't matter. Why should me sharing a link via a PM and my action be aggregated into an anonymous number worry me? How is the argu…

It's not the same thing. Let's say I'm a republicrat and I'm furiously sending private messages with links to democan sites showing my friends how evil I think they are. Except now I'm told every one of my links as just made those republicrat sites more liked an I'm helping make it look like they are more popular than they really are. Scanning emails to serve you ads does not leak information to the public indirectly…

It does actually leak information in the form of ad prices and view rates. Not directly to he public, but it is leaked.

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#54

Post by Groxx »

steevdave wrote: post #43
TomGullen wrote: post #40

To me, this is just standard privacy hyperbole that rears it's head every now and then. Anyone remember the headlines several years ago when "Google 'scans' your emails to serve targetted ads'? When was the last time you heard someone complain about that anymore? No one does, because it doesn't matter. Why should me sharing a link via a PM and my action be aggregated into an anonymous number worry me? How is the argu…

While I don't use facebook's messaging except on the extremely rare occasion that someone messages me when I have their web page open, I don't think sharing a URL with someone means I LIKE the content, there are many different reasons to share a URL.

Then is it safe to assume that you disapprove of their like-counter-increasing when you share a link on facebook? It appears they do then too, and you may be sharing it to say "I hate this".

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#55

Post by Groxx »

joeyo wrote: post #47
Volpe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a 'Private Message'. Seems to be misusing the word private. The gmail analogy is a little off, a closer one would be to compare to gtalk. Do google scan gtalk messages? Also what if the message is "This is so crap: " does that increase the like?

> The gmail analogy is a little off, a closer one would be > to compare to gtalk. Do google scan gtalk messages? Unless you specifically select "Go off the record" I strongly suspect that they do.

Since they show up in gmail while you're "on the record", I would assume so.

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#56

Post by dumb-dumb »

The difference between Gmail and Facebook is that Gmail did not aim to track who you correspond with. Facebook is focussed on personally identifiable information. They have made it their business from Day 1 to know who your correspondents (friends) are _and_ to exploit that for profit.

To my mind, this is not something Google set out to do. Although to compete with Facebook, I imagine they may have changed direction. We have Facebook to thank for that.

Let's imagine for a second that the future brings us the proverbial "video telephone" that even the most non-technical person expects to one day be standard issue. Crystal clear, real-time communication with both audio and video as available to every person as owning a cell phone is today. Now, hold that thought.

Should companies be invited into every conversation we have on this device? Should they be permitted to show ads to us as we converse?

We never had companies keeping a record of everyone who we telephone and listening in to our telephone conversation to try to figure out what junk postal mail to send us. Would this be different? How?

Ok, now we can return to present day reality. The question is: Where do we draw the line? Should companies be a party to every conversation? What will happen if we leave this question to the unscrupulous kids working and compromised adults working at Facebook? I doubt they would see anything wrong with what I described in the previous paragraph.

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#57

Post by guelo »

MartinCron wrote: post #31
SeanDav wrote: post #17

Why are people still using Facebook anyway? I can only presume people that do simply don't care much about privacy because Facebook has proved time and time again that your privacy does not matter at all to them.

All of their privacy breaches don't really matter if you consider all of the things that you do with Facebook to be explicitly public. My only privacy filters are discretion and sobriety, and they've worked well enough so far.

Danger is if your friends don't have similar filters and expose your drunk indiscretions

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#58

Post by samstave »

steevdave wrote: post #43
TomGullen wrote: post #40

To me, this is just standard privacy hyperbole that rears it's head every now and then. Anyone remember the headlines several years ago when "Google 'scans' your emails to serve targetted ads'? When was the last time you heard someone complain about that anymore? No one does, because it doesn't matter. Why should me sharing a link via a PM and my action be aggregated into an anonymous number worry me? How is the argu…

While I don't use facebook's messaging except on the extremely rare occasion that someone messages me when I have their web page open, I don't think sharing a URL with someone means I LIKE the content, there are many different reasons to share a URL.

HN Challenge:

Make a URL shortener service which allows you to send a link to someone from within facebook - but it blocks all known FB domains and IPs from viewing said URL.

It will only take the first click on it then expire. if all the first clicks are from FB - it would mean that FB is pre-emptively scanning and tracking all URL messages - even before users actually visit.

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#59

Post by samstave »

dumb-dumb wrote: post #56

The difference between Gmail and Facebook is that Gmail did not aim to track who you correspond with. Facebook is focussed on personally identifiable information. They have made it their business from Day 1 to know who your correspondents (friends) are _and_ to exploit that for profit. To my mind, this is not something Google set out to do. Although to compete with Facebook, I imagine they may have changed direction.…

EXACTLY

Although I still believe google tracks this covertly, FB is overt about it.

Re: Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes

#60

Post by MartinCron »

guelo wrote: post #57
MartinCron wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of their privacy breaches don't really matter if you consider all of the things that you do with Facebook to be explicitly public. My only privacy filters are discretion and sobriety, and they've worked well enough so far.

Danger is if your friends don't have similar filters and expose your drunk indiscretions

That's a problem with your friend, not with Facebook. As someone wiser than me once said, "you can't opt-out of people talking about you on the Internet"
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