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Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

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Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#31

Post by wavefunction »

baroffoos wrote: post #27
wavefunction wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with introspection about what you're doing on an ethical level? There's no legal standard involved so you don't have to be a lawyer, just a bit more thoughtful.

The law isn't just ethics. Companies have whole legal teams because laws are so complex. Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok?

My point is if you err on the side of ethics you likely would never need to worry about the law. I am fully confident the vast majority of people can determine when they're doing something unethical. I am not saying people will not undertake actions they know to be unethical, but avoiding unethical actions will protect that person from exposure to legal liability.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#32

Post by blitmap »

droithomme wrote: post #9

So this relates to their practice of ransacking all your email contacts without your consent, engaging in data theft as they upload them and analyze them for subsequent actions. And of course Linked In is also notorious for engaging in this criminal vile privacy raping practice. I remember maybe 8 years ago it was here on HN that a company was found to be doing this and it was shocking to some. But an executive of th…

You know someday when we have consumer protection laws for things like this, a company will be forced to trace every piece of derived data on a user based off of what was unlawfully collected - and provably delete it. Instead of simply paying a fine and moving along with the new insights they have on you. Like an entrance fee to the club.

Sidenote: I bet you could make a business out of tracing derived data to comply with lawful orders.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#33

Post by doodliego »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #19
jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

I'm glad the attorney general is getting involved. We need to start charging Facebook execs for these flagrant privacy violations. They're being fined 3 billion dollars for legal expenses relating to an FTC inquiry… and their stock price went up by 8% [1]. The market just does not care; it's time regulators and law enforcement started to. [1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/facebook-stock-is-up-becaus...

What laws have they broken? Without laws to break there isn't much justification for punishment.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#34

Post by joering2 »

kerng wrote: post #30
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What laws have they broken? Without laws to break there isn't much justification for punishment.

Theft of personal information seems the most obvious one that they could be charged with. Unauthorized access of email accounts and exfiltration of information is something hackers have gone to jail for.

Single instance can put you 20 behind bars. Zuck would be computed 250,000 years for all the mass email access hack even if it cleverly asked users to actually gave passwords in at their own free will. But to semiquote: you kill one men thats a murder, you kill million men thats statistics.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#35

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

cobbzilla wrote: post #26
omeid2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fines also needs to be fair, not fixed cost. I think the EU has got the percentage-of-revenue approach right. A million dollar fine for a small company can be death-sentence while for a big player it is lose change, that is not fair.

I agree that percent of revenue is a much better metric to base these kinds of fines off of, but not without reservations -- a small company with high sales revenue but razor thin margin could get killed by a % revenue fine; this seems unfair to the little guy. On the other hand, if the fine is % income or anything but % gross receipts, then of course the system will be gamed endlessly by accountants and lawyers to s…

> So % of revenue it is.

GDPR, 4% of Global revenue and your Directors can be barred from operating in the EU.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#36

Post by tzs »

spaceheretostay wrote: post #28
baroffoos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law isn't just ethics. Companies have whole legal teams because laws are so complex. Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok?

> Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok? Yes. 100%. "I was just following orders" is not a valid excuse, ever - Nuremberg is the obvious extreme example, but it's true everywhere.

In fact, "I was just following orders" often is a valid excuse. It didn't work at Nuremberg because it was an extreme example. The orders there were to do things that could not even conceivably be legal, so those who carried them out were considered to have knowingly acted illegally.

When the orders are to do something that is plausibly legal, and you have good reason to believe that it is in fact so, "I was just following orders" will probably work in most jurisdictions.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#37

Post by radicaldreamer »

blitmap wrote: post #32
droithomme wrote: post #9

So this relates to their practice of ransacking all your email contacts without your consent, engaging in data theft as they upload them and analyze them for subsequent actions. And of course Linked In is also notorious for engaging in this criminal vile privacy raping practice. I remember maybe 8 years ago it was here on HN that a company was found to be doing this and it was shocking to some. But an executive of th…

You know someday when we have consumer protection laws for things like this, a company will be forced to trace every piece of derived data on a user based off of what was unlawfully collected - and provably delete it. Instead of simply paying a fine and moving along with the new insights they have on you. Like an entrance fee to the club. Sidenote: I bet you could make a business out of tracing derived data to comply…

It’ll be very hard because it can be impossible to trace a model back to it’s constituent data, especially if it’s ephemeral

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#38

Post by spaceheretostay »

tzs wrote: post #36
spaceheretostay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should a developer be responsible because the cookie banner they implemented wasn't compliant with the laws of 100 countries even though the legal team already told them it was ok? Yes. 100%. "I was just following orders" is not a valid excuse, ever - Nuremberg is the obvious extreme example, but it's true everywhere.

In fact, "I was just following orders" often is a valid excuse. It didn't work at Nuremberg because it was an extreme example. The orders there were to do things that could not even conceivably be legal, so those who carried them out were considered to have knowingly acted illegally. When the orders are to do something that is plausibly legal, and you have good reason to believe that it is in fact so, "I was just fol…

None of what Facebook has done here sounds plausibly legal to me. I'm not a lawyer, but this stuff is plain-as-day immoral and illegal from my eyes.

Re: Facebook's Email-Harvesting Practice Is Under Investigation in N.Y.

#40

Post by orijing »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

I'm glad the attorney general is getting involved. We need to start charging Facebook execs for these flagrant privacy violations. They're being fined 3 billion dollars for legal expenses relating to an FTC inquiry… and their stock price went up by 8% [1]. The market just does not care; it's time regulators and law enforcement started to. [1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/facebook-stock-is-up-becaus...

Is it a coincidence that the stock price would move on the day when FB releases earnings?
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