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Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

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Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give access to your chat as the parent poster claims, why are you surprised that Netflix has access?

Because it’s not a reasonable expectation that your private messages would be shared with an advertising partner when you link your account to it, and “give access” is rarely a step that your average user actually reads, much like agreeing to TOS’s upon signup. And catering to the average user’s expectation is what should dictate policy, not a “technically we have permission” caveat.

> would be shared with an advertising partner

In this case Netflix was not an advertising partner. You were signing into Facebook Chat inside the Netflix chat, and participating in Facebook chat messages inside the Netflix app.

You were opting in and using the Netflix app as a Facebook Chat client. Its like being surprised the Pidgin executable could see your Jabber messages.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#132
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to back that up with any citations, or should everyone just take it on faith that what a throwaway says isn’t made up?

Facebook is on both ends of the e2e. e2e encryption means no from client to client can read your messages. Your client certainly can - and Facebook is the client. It would have no problem sending back signals on your messages (or the full message) to Facebook servers. Doesn't mean it's happening. But it's interesting that e2e encryption alone makes you positive it isn't.

Agreed, and that’s how it would work. I was more highlighting the throwaway with comment that had no context or link to sources.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#133
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to back that up with any citations, or should everyone just take it on faith that what a throwaway says isn’t made up?

Well, how can anyone trust facebook and whatsapp? How can we be so sure that e2e is done properly without looking into source code.

These are all a fair questions, but they’re still questions and not some confident assertion with absolutely no sources from a total throwaway account. That was my point.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#134
post #6

I'm not clear whether I understood what the article is claiming. It's clear they claim that Meta shared customer's direct messages with a business partner without notifying the individuals who sent and received the messages. It also SOUNDED to me like the article was claiming they did so AFTER Meta introduced "end-to-end encryption" (which would ALSO mean that they were lying about offering end-to-end encryption). Am…

The cluster of allegations is that the Onavo acquisition put FB-designed and built rootkits underneath TLS on a significant fraction of all smartphones in the United States and that FB/IG (now Meta) used clear text access to ostensibly secure HTTPS sessions to extract arbitrary data from both competitors and partner companies to play poker with X-Ray glasses on as concerned all competition in an ostensibly free and f…

This article has nothing to do with onavo.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#135
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this wasn't Facebook it wouldn't even be news.

I hope you’re being sarcastic? Or is that actually your stance on people’s privacy rights?

Google docs literally has the exact same feature and we're not even talking about it. Using the exact same OAuth framework as here you can grant Netflix and Spotify the right to read everything and all comments in your Google Docs. You can even grant them the right to read all your emails in Gmail!

In all seriousness i believe anyone providing oauth should just shut it down at this point, Cambridge Analytica was entirely users granting a third party oauth access to read their friends lists with an explicit permission dialog and all and it was a scandal that led to massive fines. The world decided that oauth access is not ok even with the dialogs prompting to allow third party access and at this point we as developers should listen and take it away. Google currently flys under the radar with the exact same access that led to cambridge analytica but they should probably just shut it down unless they want to run the risk of similar court cases.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the article quite confusing and unclear to be honest. Are there any other sources? This is the original NYT article from 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-priva... "Internal documents show that the social network gave Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and others far greater access to people’s data than it has disclosed." Facebook promised E2E at the end of 2023.

> Facebook promised E2E at the end of 2023. Wait, seriously? Like 4-6 months ago? Like, yesterday in terms of how long they haven't had it? Sheesh, a day doesn't go by that I'm not reminded of how happy I am to have dropped FB so long ago.

They've had it for years, it was just opt-in. More recently they've applied it to everything.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#137

For important context on my post here, please read tsunamihippo's post first: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39859319 . This story seems very overblown. Are we arguing that Facebook should not ever allow any third party app to ask permission to read the user's Facebook DMs? There are valid use cases for this permission, and every case where an app asks for it is not a "privacy violation". Sure, did Netflix or S…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#138
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the context, it's important. But from the link you posted: > In order for you to write a message to a Facebook friend from within Spotify, for instance, we needed to give Spotify “write access.” For you to be able to read messages back, we needed Spotify to have “read access.” “Delete access” meant that if you deleted a message from within Spotify, it would also delete from Facebook. No third party was rea…

> So here Facebook acknowledges that an app that sends messages needs write permission, not read. I guess the feature at issue here is that you could actually hold a conversation with a Facebook friend inside of Netflix or Spotify which does indeed necessitate the ability to read back messages from the other user. Whether it was wise to allow that instead of the kind of sharing systems we use today in 2024 is another…

Depending on the OS architecture it might be possible to have an SDK render messages without handing any data to the parent app. Or of it's not possible at least the question is where any of the messages even hit Netflix servers.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#139

"Meta said it rolled out end-to-end encryption "for all personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook" in December. And in 2018, Facebook told Vox that it doesn't use private messages for ad targeting.1 But a few months later, The New York Times, citing "hundreds of pages of Facebook documents," reported that Facebook "gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users' private messages."" 1. "Does Face…

My guess is that FB stores the keys to reverse the encryption.

The point of e2e is to block any third party to to see your conversations by sniffing packets. Not to stop Meta themselves.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#140

"Meta said it rolled out end-to-end encryption "for all personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook" in December. And in 2018, Facebook told Vox that it doesn't use private messages for ad targeting.1 But a few months later, The New York Times, citing "hundreds of pages of Facebook documents," reported that Facebook "gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users' private messages."" 1. "Does Face…

My guess is that FB stores the keys to reverse the encryption. The point of e2e is to block any third party to to see your conversations by sniffing packets. Not to stop Meta themselves.

> The point of e2e is to block any third party to to see your conversations by sniffing packets. Not to stop Meta themselves.

No... the point of end to end encryption is to be encrypted end to end. Its literally the name. If meta can read your encrypted messages, that is just normal encryption not end to end encryption.

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