Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 370 posts

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#321

Post by oselhn »

eric_h wrote: post #314
oselhn wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had one incident which convinced me that their algorithm is easily fooled even by single misclick. I hate ads propagating alcohol so I always report them to FB. Once I misclicked and instead of reporting it I opened linked article. Based on that click FB added alcohol to my interests. It did not matter that I reported all other similar adds before and also after that.

Whether the algorithms seem effective to you, as a single consumer of the advertisements, is irrelevant. Facebook ad campaigns most definitely work (though I'd imagine there's some variance of effectiveness based on what exactly you're trying to sell with the ad campaigns), and lookalike audiences are an effective way of determining who to show your ads to. It's really quite simple, as a company you can spend money o…

I agree. But I reacted on comments disqusing if this algorithm is capable of doing more than targeting ads to make them cost effective.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#322

Post by CodeSheikh »

From FB official statement: "When you sign up for Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android, or log into Messenger on an Android device, you are given the option to continuously upload your contacts as well as your call and text history."

Why FB needs users call and text history in first place? These privacy options are enabled by default when you install Massenger app and majority of the people are not aware of these privacy settings on their phones. And even if you alter a privacy setting on you phone then upon next update of the Massenger application it gets reset to defaults! And we all know the high frequency of app updates. It is like all of these are part of a bigger systemic issue and it smells foul play.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#323

Post by MikkoFinell »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #322

From FB official statement: "When you sign up for Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android, or log into Messenger on an Android device, you are given the option to continuously upload your contacts as well as your call and text history." Why FB needs users call and text history in first place? These privacy options are enabled by default when you install Massenger app and majority of the people are not aware of these pr…

They need call and text history to data mine so they can make money off of you by selling ads, and creating a psychological profile that will help make their products more intrusive.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#324

Post by kodablah »

delecti wrote: post #313
kodablah wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why they must be regulated. I don't agree with GP's assessment that users "haven't realized" but I do agree that the "majority however won't care". So why regulate if a majority of people are ok with it? They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do. Doesn't have to be a law to force them to prioritize this way. This false equivalence to expertise of airplane mechanics is completely…

> They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant. They simply don't know why they should care, probably due to a lack of understanding what it means for a company to have a copy of their data, and what that could enable those companies to do and figure out.

> While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant

If that's true, solve that problem directly via education and enforcing transparency. There are also other solutions such as grants w/ stipulations, enforcement of existing fraud statutes, etc.

Let's assume there are 3 segments of people here: 1) the ignorant, 2) the non-ignorant accepting, and the 3) non-ignorant unaccepting. We have to stop letting #3 (arguably the smallest group but probably consisting of most here) run the show wrt to laws. There are too many consequences to pieces of legislation that all of us business owners have to conform to regardless of whether it is targeted to us. Most often we don't even recognize the consequences because we are so focused on how good we're going to do and how much we're going to help everyone. I dub it digital security theater.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#325

Post by jonathankoren »

stefanmm wrote: post #98
jonathankoren wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an incredibly delusional way of framing it. What do you think the A/B test was set up to optimize, privacy or number of uploads? This permission screen is a push poll.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll

number of uploads, obviously. Hacking the human lazyness.

Well then it isn’t really much of choice is it? It’s a false choice. The product manager will apply as much pressure as needed to get the desired effect. To quote Captain Ramsey in Crimson Tide, “[Y]ou can get a horse to deal cards. It’s just a matter of voltage.”

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#326

Post by ibdf »

I partially blame the Android permissions system. They are so generic you have no idea what you are giving permissions to. Permission in this case: "Allow INSERT APP NAME HERE to access your contacts?"

Access what? Read access? Write access? Get all of their name and contact fields? Send them text messages? Call them? Spam?

If I don't give them the access, what happens next? Can I not use the app? Will the app break? Will the app just ignore it?

There's no information. If you google it for more information you will have to dig for it in some obscure google groups forum, and then yet it's not really clear. Because when you google for Android App Permissions you get results meant for Android Developers, and not normal human beings (jk about the normal human beings part).

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#327

Post by jimmaswell »

vanderZwan wrote: post #96
ponderatul wrote: post #66

I think we are talking differently about this permission concept. Legally yes, they had permission. But the fact that they used those dark ux patterns to request that permission should not be forgotten. Even though legally they are in the right, we as users should make this fact irrelevant and just abandon the platform. Let them be right, let them win the argument but lose the battle with the general public.

> Even though legally they are in the right Even that is dubious. Law is interpreted by judges for this exact reason: people pushing it to extremes.

I don't see how a popup that asks for permission in clear and simple terms is dubious at all. I don't want to have to print out the terms and conditions, get them notarized with my signature on them, and snailmail them back to the company when I want to use an app's features in the future, but if explicitly consenting to a popup isn't good enough then I fear that's the path we'd be headed down.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#328

Post by rch »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #282
lotsofpulp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have international family/friends, WhatsApp is the most ubiquitous and easy to use option I’ve come across.

Honest question: Is it really? That can be just my network, but I've never stumbled upon anyone using WhatsApp here in Poland. I only know this name because I follow tech news. Almost everyone uses Facebook's Messenger, some people use Telegram, sometimes Hangouts, gamers use Discord, techies Signal or Jabber and that's pretty much it.

My friends from Germany, Switzerland, and France all primarily use WhatsApp I've no idea why.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#329

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

superkuh wrote: post #283
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve this comment written a lot here. And while I get it and even agree partially, there is a problem of scope and precedent. It’s easy for us to say “stupid user, wtf did you think fb was doing?” But, the truth is we don’t actually know. As tech people we are even just guessing at the real scope of FB’s collection and how they use that data. It’s not like this is something a typical user could really know because th…

And I didn't have to know because I never signed up for Facebook because it's obvious that centralization leads to perverse incentives. It's been obvious from the start but dismissed without consideration ala https://xkcd.com/743/

Yea, but as to the comic, man sometimes you really do just need to get some fucking work done. If I sent an openLibre document around to my company, well, that would be dumb.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#330

Post by simplify »

kodablah wrote: post #324
delecti wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant. They simply don't know why they should care, probably due to a lack of understanding what it means for a company to have a copy of their data, and what that could enable those companies to do and figure out.

> While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant If that's true, solve that problem directly via education and enforcing transparency. There are also other solutions such as grants w/ stipulations, enforcement of existing fraud statutes, etc. Let's assume there are 3 segments of people here: 1) the ignorant, 2) the non-ignorant accepting, and the 3) non-ignorant unaccepting.…

> If that's true, solve that problem directly via education and enforcing transparency.

This doesn't always apply. Should car regulations be abolished in favor of educating the ignorant?

Post reply on HN