As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
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Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#2Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#3> The New York Times interviewed more than 60 people, including former employees of Facebook and its partners, former government officials and privacy advocates.
> The Times also reviewed more than 270 pages of Facebook's internal documents and performed technical tests and analysis to monitor what information was being passed between Facebook and partner devices and websites.
Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#4> The social network allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.
> The social network permitted Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, and it let Yahoo view streams of friends’ posts as recently as this summer, despite public statements that it had stopped that type of sharing years earlier.
The records the New York Times reviewed were "generated in 2017" and "some were still in effect this year." That means not only did these agreements cross through Facebook's representations to various governments, they also overlap with GDPR.
Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#5> The social network allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.
> The social network permitted Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, and it let Yahoo view streams of friends’ posts as recently as this summer, despite public statements that it had stopped that type of sharing years earlier.
This information contrasts with a statement Facebook provided in 2018, stating that such data sharing partnerships ended at the end of 2015. That statement itself was correcting an earlier statement stating that such access had ended even earlier.
From https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-shared-user-...:
> Facebook shared personal information culled from its users' profiles with other companies after the date when executives have said the social network prevented third-party developers from gaining access to the data, the company confirmed Friday.
> The companies had access to the data during a stretch of time in 2015 after Facebook had locked out most developers who build apps that work on its social network. Facebook gave select "whitelisted" companies extensions before they were also blocked from getting its users' personal information.
> Those extensions expired before the end of 2015, Facebook said. The company believes the previously unreported extensions with a select group of companies is consistent with previous statements that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made, including in testimony to Congress, about shielding its 2.2 billion users' personal information from third parties since 2015.
> "Any new 'deals', as the Journal describes them, involved people's ability to share their broader friends' lists — not their friends' private information like photos or interests," Ime Archibong, Facebook's vice president of product partnerships, said in a written statement.
Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#6“Among the revelations was that Facebook obtained data from multiple partners for a controversial friend-suggestion tool called “People You May Know.”
The feature, introduced in 2008, continues even though some Facebook users have objected to it, unsettled by its knowledge of their real-world relationships. Gizmodo and other news outlets have reported cases of the tool’s recommending friend connections between patients of the same psychiatrist, estranged family members, and a harasser and his victim.
Facebook, in turn, used contact lists from the partners, including Amazon, Yahoo and the Chinese company Huawei — which has been flagged as a security threat by American intelligence officials — to gain deeper insight into people’s relationships and suggest more connections, the records show.”
Well, that explains some of the conspiracy-mongering that was so rampant around this feature. Facebook (probably) wasn’t secretly recording your phone calls etc. They didn’t need to - they were getting streams of data from other partners.
“Facebook also allowed Spotify, Netflix and the Royal Bank of Canada to read, write and delete users’ private messages, and to see all participants on a thread”
Uhhhh, excuse me?
Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#7“Among the revelations was that Facebook obtained data from multiple partners for a controversial friend-suggestion tool called “People You May Know.” The feature, introduced in 2008, continues even though some Facebook users have objected to it, unsettled by its knowledge of their real-world relationships. Gizmodo and other news outlets have reported cases of the tool’s recommending friend connections between patien…
> Royal Bank of Canada to read, write and delete users’ private messages, and to see all participants on a thread
There's a settlement out there for anyone with a Facebook account who was turned down for a loan by RBC. No chance RBC wants its dirty laundry aired in a Fair Housing suit.
Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#8It was only a few weeks ago that people were arguing that it was anti-competitive for Facebook not to share data with other companies.
Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#9Interesting. Let's see what the local "defend FB at all costs" group has to say about this.
Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
#10“Among the revelations was that Facebook obtained data from multiple partners for a controversial friend-suggestion tool called “People You May Know.” The feature, introduced in 2008, continues even though some Facebook users have objected to it, unsettled by its knowledge of their real-world relationships. Gizmodo and other news outlets have reported cases of the tool’s recommending friend connections between patien…
> Spotify, which could view messages of more than 70 million users a month, still offers the option to share music through Facebook Messenger.
Not sure why the others needed it