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FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

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Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#211

Post by wutbrodo »

thfuran wrote: post #191
SwetDrems wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox's Facebook container extension and Privacy Badger extension makes this easy to do.

"Easy". The real problem is that most people don't even know it is necessary to do. Opting out of Facebook's data collection is easier than opting out of the credit agencies' but it is decidedly more involved than just not using their products.

Sure, but in the context of this conversation, googling "stop Facebook from tracking me" and installing a couple extensions is infinitely easier than the solution to the abuses of credit agencies, which is... what, opting out of a significant part of the economy?

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#212

Post by repolfx »

sailingparrot wrote: post #192
repolfx wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you assuming here that Equifax could absorb any size of fine? Also, you seem to be OK with the idea that any company that gets hacked could be fined $5 billion. As being unhackable is an unachievable standard, that effectively means the FTC could bankrupt almost any company on a whim. That would be huge power in their hands and would not magically stop exploits from happening. I think there's a big question about…

I think you have a tendency of assuming a little bit too much about what others think based on 1 sentence. > Are you assuming here that Equifax could absorb any size of fine? Who said any size of fine would be appropriate? There is a lot of possible fine size between 500M$ and the max they could absorb. > Also, you seem to be OK with the idea that any company that gets hacked could be fined $5 billion Where did I say…

The airline industry is heavily regulated and the software industry isn't. Will Boeing be punished if they're found to have made a mistake - politically it's an absolute certainty, legally I presume it'd depend on whether there was an element of knowing to it, or whether all parties genuinely believed they were doing the best thing for safety.

But despite how tempting it is to punish people who make mistakes, it's generally understood that incompetence is not illegal and should not be. Criminalising incompetence just makes everyone a criminal and hands absolute power to prosecutors and regulators: a scenario warned against many times by students of history.

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#213

Post by slim »

mirimir wrote: post #133
slim wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's true only in us

But then GDPR is effective only in the EU. At some point, wouldn't it be simpler to have the same policies globally? Or is that too simpleminded?

GDPR is effective only in the EU. If you don't do business in EU, you can ignore it.

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#214

Post by gridlockd »

godelski wrote: post #195
gridlockd wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You say that as if it already happening makes it okay. I'm not saying "it's okay". It is what it is. I'm saying we're applying a double standard. It's like complaining about lighting a match in the middle of a wildfire. > Because if the FTC cracks down on them then it sets a precedent to crack down on the credit agencies. That makes no sense me. They can crack down on Libra for any number of reasons. They're clearl…

> It's like complaining about lighting a match in the middle of a wildfire. It's like complaining about lighting a match in a dry area while there is a fire somewhere in California. FTFY The analogy is bad because the match in the middle of the forest fire won't affect the fire. You're already engulfed in flames. What we're taking about is two different sectors. They are disjoint (unlike your analogy). But you can be…

> What we're taking about is two different sectors. They are disjoint (unlike your analogy).

I obviously disagree. It's the essentially the same sector (consumer finance). Some of the involved companies (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal) are core players in that sector.

> 1) just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it's incorrect.

Indeed, it just means you failed to connect premise, analysis and conclusion to meet my personal standards for a sound argument. It might be incorrect too, but I'm not in the position to demonstrate that.

> 2) law works highly off of precedence. So one ruling affects new ones that come in. They keep try to be consistent.

That argument works the other way around too: It would be inconsistent to turn a blind eye to credit bureaus for all this time, but now that Facebook comes along, suddenly it's a problem? Why? Just because it's Facebook?

> 3) just because people/laws are "okay" with something now doesn't mean it can't or won't change. In fact, I'd argue that's why new laws get made.

Again, this argument works both ways. Just because people aren't okay with something doesn't mean it can or will change. You are not adding any new information to your argument.

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#215

Post by meowface »

thfuran wrote: post #147
pyython wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this! I still can't believe credit bureaus are allowed to even exist. At no time do I give them explicit permission to collect my (very) personal information, there's almost literally no way I can opt out (short of not participating in the modern financial system), their interpretation of this data has an outsized influence on my quality of life, AND they have proven themselves incompetent at protect…

>If I'm worried about Facebook's use of my data the answer is simple: stop using Facebook. Don't forget to stop using every website that embeds facebook buttons (or block the scripts). It's not exactly easy to prevent facebook from gathering information either.

Thankfully it's pretty easy to use something like uMatrix to block all requests to their domains. And I believe with a few extra lists toggled on the settings page, uBlock will also probably block requests to all or nearly all of their tracking/ad domains.

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#216

Post by coryfklein »

gridlockd wrote: post #124
pyython wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this! I still can't believe credit bureaus are allowed to even exist. At no time do I give them explicit permission to collect my (very) personal information, there's almost literally no way I can opt out (short of not participating in the modern financial system), their interpretation of this data has an outsized influence on my quality of life, AND they have proven themselves incompetent at protect…

You did give them explicit permission by participating in the modern financial system. That's why I keep saying all the hypothetical privacy concerns with Facebook's Libra already are reality with the current financial system. Equifax also didn't get fined because of what they were doing, but because they were negligent in handling the data. Having said that, given the importance of consumer debt in the US economy, c…

This has the same flavor as the folks who say, "If you don't like some law XYZ, just move to a different country!"

If you don't want Equifax to have your private information, just don't participate in the modern financial system!

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#217

Post by tlavoie »

rgharris wrote: post #181
Sargos wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you see that? I still only see the option for SMS 2FA.

On desktop I saw it under Settings & Privacy -> Two-step Verification after clicking "Change verification method" (previously had SMS setup). Here is a direct link: https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/two-step-verification

Odd, on my desktop view, there is no option to change the method. It's SMS or nothing.

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#218

Post by mikestaub »

I think an important detail is that as part of the settlement Facebook is exonerated from all past 'mistakes'. This is actually really good for Facebook and was the wrong move by the FTC. This will encourage future privacy abuses as now they know they can 'get away' with it.

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#219

Post by annadane »

repolfx wrote: post #175
annadane wrote: post #63

I still find Facebook has one of the most toxic cultures of any company out there. All they've ever done during their history is betray user trust, but it's ok as long as they keep 'apologizing' and then doing nothing to fix it

That's a huge over-reaction. One reason Facebook came to dominate over older social networks was that they provided much, much better user privacy controls, they were better at keeping fake users off their networks and they kept the site more secure. Before Facebook social networks didn't have APIs and thus didn't have permissions - everything just scraped the (always public) profile pages. Moreover many of the thing…

They certainly don't provide better privacy controls today, if they ever did. And even that they ever did is unclear. https://www.wired.com/story/why-zuckerberg-15-year-apology-t...

Re: FTC Imposes $5B Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook

#220

Post by robomartin »

msla wrote: post #169
robomartin wrote: post #160

The most important privacy enhancement they could make is nowhere to be found in this settlement: Provide easy means for users to permanently delete all information, posts, comments and messages, as well as a setting to automatically expire and delete all if the above as desired. This should include backups.

This is useless because of external backups, and not desirable because of things like posts becoming evidence of criminality.

Not useless at all. If websites are required, by law, to protect your information, seek permission to share it and also institute retention policies based on your preferences, this would be a huge improvement in privacy.

If by external backups you mean my cousin copying one of my photos and saving it or something like that, sure, I take your point. However, I think you understand exactly what I mean. There's a massive difference between that and Facebook having an entire record of my life, complete with tags, pictures and classifications, all of which I have exactly zero control over.

And, no, social media does not exist to facilitate law enforcement investigations. If that is their primary purpose they need to disclose it. It so happens that it can be used that way, but we should not pass legislation based on the possibility of law enforcement using these databases to effectively spy and reach for people's private information.

Cautionary tales abound, incuding:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

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