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Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

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Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#281

Post by lkbm »

smt88 wrote: post #42

Saying "unintentionally" here is like saying you unintentionally stole someone's TV when they gave you their key to walk their dog. It takes extra work to upload those contacts, which means several managers and developers decided to do it and then spent time implementing it. For the FB employees reading this: what is your tipping point? Would you say no to that assignment?

> It takes extra work to upload those contacts

It also takes extra work to ask consent. You build it. You don't notice that your confirmation screen fails to trigger. You've just unintentionally uploaded a bunch of data without consent, when your intention was to do it with consent.

It's still pretty darn negligent, but it's easy to see how it could be done unintentionally.

Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#282

Post by randyrand »

Similarly, google has been publishing my mailing address on the "Maps" app for decades and I've yet to see bloggers write about it.

Publishing mailing addresses worse since that is a physical location in addition to being mail location.

Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#283

Post by untog »

To be blunt: when I'm hiring for a developer and interview who worked for Facebook as an applicant I'm going to have a lot of questions about exactly what they worked on. There's no way a feature like this created by accident, the developers who put it together knew exactly what they were doing, and did it anyway.

Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#284

Post by throwaway_9168 »

thecatspaw wrote: post #212
throwaway_9168 wrote: post #40

Since FB has gone out of their way to weaponize "friendship", my suggestion to everyone who actually likes to have some standards in their life and don't like to be manipulated like that is simple. Just do it back to them. "Unfriend" (IRL) everyone you know who works at Facebook and tell them you will "friend" them back once they leave the company.

I would never friend someone again who dropped me because of my employer

Suppose we reverse that sentiment a little bit: I would never friend someone again who knowingly manipulated me to suit their employer and ultimately themselves. Which, once you remove all the layers of abstraction, is what it boils down to.

"Suppose you were bereft of morals, and suppose you were working at Facebook; but I repeat myself."

Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#286

Post by AmIDev »

3xblah wrote: post #17

Can someone use a throwaway e-mail address to sign up for Facebook? Once the e-mail address is validated, is there any further need for a valid e-mail address to continue using FB? Historical fact: Going back to the days when a university address was required, if the user created her Facebook account while at university and her e-mail address later expired when she graduated, FB did not disable the account. Unless on…

In my experience, Nope.

I wanted to create a FB account while giving as minimal data as possible. While it's possible to create an account using temporary emails / temporary phone numbers, FB eventually asks you to submit more details.

This includes clicking verification links, uploading your photo, providing phone numbers etc.

Even when I managed to do all these (using fake data), my accounts got disabled in few days.

PS: when I used my email id associated with my FB account deleted back in ~2012, I found out it wasn't deleted. FB asked me to recognize pictures of my friends. So I believe no detail that ever passes the event horizon of facebook can ever leave it.

Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#287

Post by rchaud »

cyphar wrote: post #235
rchaud wrote: post #199

FB's public comments about these remind me a lot of the "5 Standard Excuses" scene in the '80s BBC sitcom Yes Minister, where a civil servant lists the best CYA mea culpas for politicians to use when something goes wrong. 1. It occurred before certain important facts were known, and couldn’t happen again 2. It was an unfortunate lapse by an individual, which has now been dealt with under internal disciplinary procedu…

For those who haven't seen the clip, [1]. Yes Minister is a brilliant piece of satire (though it does have a somewhat unfortunate Thatcher-esque streak when it comes to discussion of unions -- though it would've been difficult to avoid ridiculing unions in satire from the 1980s). [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y4PEqvk0Jg

The episode where Hacker and Humphrey argue about subsidizing the arts is one of my favourites, with the latter taking the position that local league football is commercial and shouldn't be subsidized, whereas arts cannot survive via market forces alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNw0P5ZMbA

Especially since it comes up again in a later episode, with Humphrey discussing the ramifications of civil servants conceding the reigns of power to ministers who'd be under pressure to carry out voter demands.

Humphrey: "How would you feel if Radio 1 played pop music 24 hours a day? Or if they took the culture programmes off of television?"

B responds "I don't know, I never watch them"

Humphrey says "Well neither do I, but it's vital to know that they're there!"

Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#289

Post by acct1771 »

thecatspaw wrote: post #212
throwaway_9168 wrote: post #40

Since FB has gone out of their way to weaponize "friendship", my suggestion to everyone who actually likes to have some standards in their life and don't like to be manipulated like that is simple. Just do it back to them. "Unfriend" (IRL) everyone you know who works at Facebook and tell them you will "friend" them back once they leave the company.

I would never friend someone again who dropped me because of my employer

Have fun working for arms dealers/defense contractors.

Re: Facebook 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5M people's email contacts without consent

#290

Post by soulofmischief »

Doxterpepper wrote: post #259
soulofmischief wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to be an advocate for privacy. I really do. But everyone just calls me paranoid, asks why I need to be worried about my government like I have something to hide, or just stares blankly at me because they can't be bothered to actually think about the words climbing through their ears. I'm going mental over the explosion of televisions in the last half decade which identify and report any content you watch on the…

I'm right there with you. Most people write it off as paranoia and give the tired "Doesn't matter if you have nothing to hide". I think the problem is the only reason we have to convince people to change is just principles. There is no existential reason right now to convince people to change their behavior. Sure it's scary having large entities vacuum up our data and spy on us but so far there are no real bad effect…

These companies would not be wrapping their practices in secrecy and lobbying against user rights unless there were sinister aspects of Big Data.

And it's not just principles. The effects of Big Data are extremely tangible even if not to you in this particular time or space. Some feel the effects now, others will feel them later in life.

I'm worried my children or grandchildren could one day be denied healthcare or adequate education or loans or low insurance payments just because of my attitude towards my government and every other aspect of my lifestyle which gets swept up and analyzed by for-profit robot armies bent on achieving the Holy Margin.

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