Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

Post by epaga » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

epaga wrote: post #63

tasubotadas wrote: post #18

What a bullsh*t. People got some money for giving up some privacy. Nobody was forced to do this. And now everybody is freaking about a fairly reasonable trade. What's next? People will start harassing students/researchers that do paid studies?

One of the more important issues here is that after the whole Onavo thing already got them into hot water, Facebook completely flaunted Apple's clear rules re: enterprise certificates, and snuck in AGAIN through the back door. I'm very interested to see what Apple's response is going to be. I'd not be shocked (in fact I'd be delighted) to see them penalize FB in some way, perhaps suspend their App Store account or so…

Post by sidcool » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

fqw3b58w4n6 wrote: post #106

sidcool wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to realize why we expect Software engineers to be bellwethers of morality and ethics. They are flesh and blood, and like any other profession, if there's money in something, there will be someone to do it

We should expect everybody to care about the morality and ethics of their actions. That's a pretty low fucking bar IMO. In software, this is one way that manifests.

Post by spricket » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

morpheuskafka wrote: post #118

nelsonic wrote: post #61

Fb is only "shutting down" it's iOS Spyware due to "bad press" not due to a sudden realisation that spying on children who are incapable of understanding the long-term consequences of the privacy invasion is fundamentally wrong/evil. Fb only stop doing things that are obviously morally reprehensible when they get caught or called out in the media. They never proactively doing the right thing. :-(

It's not even that--they are not stopping the identical Android app, only the iOS one. From the media/public standpoint, the programs are nearly identical, so this is clearly a case of either Apple ordering them to stop and/or they know they are hosed for giving Apple the finger and trying to pull the plug before Apple revokes their entire company's enterprise certificate, which would break any internal apps (the int…

Post by TwoNineA » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #136

ardy42 wrote: post #130

Facebook has had its enterprise certificates revoked by Apple [1] https://seekingalpha.com/news/3427520-apple-banning-facebook... > "Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple," Apple says. "Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which i…

It is still available on Android.

Post by wicket » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

heinrichhartman wrote: post #68

wicket wrote: post #65

Meanwhile... Google, Microsoft and Apple* _receive_ money from their users to harvest the same personal data that Facebook is willing to pay their users for and nobody bats an eyelid. * Apple is probably the least guilty here, however as long as their OS remains closed, we don't actually know how much personal data they are harvesting.

You can easily verify using Wireshark on a router, that neither Google, Microsoft or Apple are redirecting ALL INTERNET TRAFFIC through their servers. This is quite a step up from sending home some telemetry data.