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

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

#191

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#192

Post by 12_throw_away »

wnevets wrote: post #173
12_throw_away wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for asking! Also on the front page today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44898934 From that article: “It is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” according to Meta’s “GenAI: Content Risk Standards. [...] The document seen by Reuters, which exceeds 200 pages, provides examples of “acceptable” chatbot dialogue during romantic role play with a minor. They include: “I t…

Can someone explain me why this shouldn't be illegal?

Well, my steelman argument against regulating this repulsive shit: every time a government says it's going to regulate infotech to protect children, it almost invariably ends up having a chilling effect that ends up restricting children's access to high quality educational and medical information. Even if a law is well-intentioned and equitable, its enforcement never is.

In this case, I'm confident that whoever wrote this section, just checking their hard drive should be sufficient to send them to jail.

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

#193

Post by banannaise »

gruez wrote: post #131
jlarocco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only the first part of the story, though. Facebook isn't guilty because Flo sent medical data through their SDK. If they were just storing it or operating on it for Flo, then the case probably would have ended differently. Facebook is guilty because they turned around and used the medical data themselves to advertise without checking if it was legal to do so. They knew, or should have known, that they needed t…

>Facebook is guilty because they turned around and used the medical data themselves to advertise without checking if it was legal to do so. What exactly did this entail? I haven't read all the court documents, but at least in the initial/amended complaint the plaintiffs didn't make this argument, probably because it's totally irrelevant to the charge of whether they "intentionally eavesdropped" or not. Either they we…

> What do you think this should look like?

Institutions that handle sensitive data that is subject to access regulations generally have a compliance process that must be followed prior to accessing and using that data, and a compliance department staffed with experts who review and approve/deny access requests.

But Facebook would rather move fast, break things, pay some fines, and reap the benefits of their illegal behavior.

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

#194

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #72

As much as I don't like facebook as a company, I think the jury reached the wrong decision here. If you read the complaint[1], "eavesdropped on and/or recorded their conversations by using an electronic device" basically amounted to "flo using facebook's sdk and sending custom events to it" (page 12, point 49). I agree that flo should be raked over the coals for sending this information to facebook in the first place…

[deleted]

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

#195

Post by WhyCause »

hennell wrote: post #190
bluGill wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say you have a responsibility to ensure you are getting legal data. you don't buy stolen things. That is meta has a reponsibility to ensure that they are not partnering with crooks. Flo gets the largest blame but meta needs to show they did their part to ensure this didn't happen. (I would not call terms of use enough unless they can show they make you understand it)

I have the type of email address that regularly receives email meant for other people with a similar name. Invites, receipts, and at one point someones Disney+ account. At one point I was getting a strangers fertility app updates - didn't know her name, but I could tell you where she was in her cycle. I've also had NHS records sent to me, again entirely unsolicited, although that had enough I could find who it was me…

> ...you can't control what others send you.

Of course not. You can, however, control what you then do with said data.

If a courier accidentally dropped a folder full of nuclear secrets in your mailbox, I promise you that if you do anything with it other than call the FBI (in the US), you will be in trouble.

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

#196

Post by banannaise »

yibg wrote: post #186
jlarocco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only the first part of the story, though. Facebook isn't guilty because Flo sent medical data through their SDK. If they were just storing it or operating on it for Flo, then the case probably would have ended differently. Facebook is guilty because they turned around and used the medical data themselves to advertise without checking if it was legal to do so. They knew, or should have known, that they needed t…

I don't like to defend facebook either but where does this end? Does google need to verify each email it sends in case it contains something illegal? Or AWS before you store something in a publicly accessible S3 bucket?

Ideally, it ends with Facebook implementing safeguards on data that could be illegal to use, and having a compliance process that rejects attempts to access that data for illegal reasons.

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

#197

Post by Spivak »

maccard wrote: post #177
Spivak wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it a distinction without a difference. To make it more obvious imagine it was one of those AI assistant devices that records your conversations so you can recall them later. Plainly obvious that accessing this data for any purpose other than servicing user requests is morally equivalent to easedropping on a person's conversations in the most traditional sense. If the company sends your conversation data to Fa…

I disagree - the blame lies with the people who sent that data to Facebook knowing it was sensitive. Whrhther meta use it for advertising or not is irrelevant. By that logic, if I listen in on your conversations but don’t do anything about it I’m not eavesdropping?

I mean this is more philosophical than anything—if you listened to my conversations but never told anyone what I said, altered your behavior, or took any action based on the information contained therein then how would I or anyone even know.

And I know it sounds pedantic but I don't think it is, it's why that data is allowed to be stored in S3 and Amazon isn't considered easedropping but Facebook is.

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

#198

Post by mulmen »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #130
zahlman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technical cases like this will always confuse jurors... On the other hand, in a number of highprofile tech cases, you can see judges learning and discussing engineering in a deeper level. Not to be ageist, but I find this highly counterintuitive.

The judge is at their job. The jury is conscripts that are often paying a financial penalty to be present.

Weird deference to authority

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

#199

Post by dang »

pllbnk wrote: post #75
ramanh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company cut all ties with Belarus more than three years ago, and all employees relocated to Europe.

[flagged]

Please don't post nationalistic flamebait to HN. It leads to nationalistic flamewars, which are a bad thing on this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#200

Post by wnevets »

12_throw_away wrote: post #192
wnevets wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain me why this shouldn't be illegal?

Well, my steelman argument against regulating this repulsive shit: every time a government says it's going to regulate infotech to protect children, it almost invariably ends up having a chilling effect that ends up restricting children's access to high quality educational and medical information. Even if a law is well-intentioned and equitable, its enforcement never is. In this case, I'm confident that whoever wrote…

Its already illegal to distribute pornographic material to children tho. Why shouldn't this be considered that?
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