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Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

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Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#321

Post by obviouslygreen »

zachlipton wrote: post #319
obviouslygreen wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. I'm saying it's never "right" in a moral/ethical sense, but when you're put in certain (fairly common) positions, the moral high ground is not a feasible option for most people. It comes down to whether you consider stability for those who depend on you more or less important than doing or refusing to do something based on whether you consider it right or wrong... that's something that's easy to judge…

This isn't the hypothetical where you're stealing a loaf of bread from the market to feed your starving family. I certainly respect that taking the moral high ground isn't always easy and that some people are going to be in situations where it is more difficult for them to do so than for others. But the standard for acting like an asshole has to be greater than simple expediency. The necessity of breaking the social…

Unfortunately, your analogy is excessively dramatic and misses the reality of the situation. It's easy to create surreal situations in which absolute visions of your own morals apply. Sorry, but you just don't get it.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#322

Post by pbhjpbhj »

andrewhillman wrote: post #223
crazygringo wrote: post #34

How about another detail -- the fact that the message said the user had photos to share, when he didn't? There's annoying spam, and then there's straight-out-lying spam -- the "x has sent you a message, you need to create an account to view it" type. Just curious, is there a way to sue/fine a company like this for false advertising, essentially?

There's no way to sue, but I suppose the FTC could take action and fine. They will claim it's a "bug"... albeit one of those "viral bugs" that seems to lead to topping the App Store download charts. These tactics make me think there's no such thing as organic growth within the app stores.

>There's no way to sue //

You can sue for anything; just not always successfully. That said ...

This appears to be trespass which I think is a tort (entering a part of property, the phone, that was off limits and without consent). You can sue for that.

It's also in the same respect contrary to the UK Computer Misuse Act (crime) AFAICT [story appears to be in the UK, or is it just UK entries in the addressbook]. That would probably hinge on the consent to access the particular files duplicated.

Then there's database rights (tort?), a sort of copyright for databases. [Copyright wouldn't apply as it's not a creative work].

Harassment (tort I think) and infringement of the right to a private life as enshrined in the ECHR (crime) seem to be causes to object as well.

As the calls were business motivated then failure to check against a telephone cold-call blacklist could also generate extra fines.

Seems there's much that could be sued for.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#323

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #149
dbpatterson wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a bald-faced lie. If it removes the content, then there is no way for it to come back.

The wording is slippery and pretty deceptive, but it’s technically correct. “Deactivating your account will remove your content from Path.” The ‘Path’ in the sentence refers to the social network, not the company’s servers.

https://path.com/privacy

This privacy policy is a joke. It basically says "we can do anything we like with your data".

Under the "What Information Do We Share With Third Parties?" section there are some classic deceptions. This one is great (as in evil genius):

>with certain social networking services, if you allow such sharing through our services; //

Not consent, allow. As in if you don't actively prevent it we'll do it.

>with service providers who are working with us in connection with the operation of our site or our services //

We'll sell you out to anyone who we can describe as "working with us".

>"in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition, or in any other situation where personal information may be disclosed or transferred as one of our business assets."

So when doing business-y stuff, blah, blah oh yeah and any time we want to use your info as a business asset. They're covering themselves, again, to sell all data to anyone who'll buy it.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#324

Post by ericd »

jliptzin wrote: post #69
JGM564 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classmates.com was sued in 2008 for sending emails claiming former classmates were searching for you. Similar, but Classmates.com was actually requiring a paid subscription before telling you there wasn't actually anyone on the other end. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/classmatescom-set...

Simple math is all it takes to understand why this is pervasive. In the classmates.com example, they collected upwards of $75 million in revenue from this scheme, and only had to dish out $2.75 million for the settlement several years later. So for any newcomers, this type of bait is an attractive business proposition; the potential lawsuit years down the line can simply be attributed to cost of revenue. And you'll o…

There's the hidden cost of permanently alienating potential customers, though, which will show up silently in reduced conversion on all subsequent advertising efforts.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#326

Post by smirksirlot »

pjbrunet wrote: post #306

I blame Google and Android and its Play Store. So many apps ask for ridiculous access to everything, they should really discourage this. There should be a big red flag on any apps that ask for "superuser" access to my phone. After getting a "smartphone" I've had 50x more spam calls. I never had this problem pre-Android. Coincidentally, spam peaks when I'm using my phone, which makes me wonder if these apps are tellin…

You're blaming the Play Store for something that the app developers decided to do? Just because there's a hole doesn't mean it should be abused, particularly since Path is supposed to be from a "legit" company.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#327

Post by zachlipton »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #321
zachlipton wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the hypothetical where you're stealing a loaf of bread from the market to feed your starving family. I certainly respect that taking the moral high ground isn't always easy and that some people are going to be in situations where it is more difficult for them to do so than for others. But the standard for acting like an asshole has to be greater than simple expediency. The necessity of breaking the social…

Unfortunately, your analogy is excessively dramatic and misses the reality of the situation. It's easy to create surreal situations in which absolute visions of your own morals apply. Sorry, but you just don't get it.

Apologies for trying to make a point. If anything, my analogy seems pretty much on point, as it barely changes the reality around the events here as described:

banging on door text/phone call, which likely causes an audible alert stranger contact/acquaintance/vendor/client/boss/relative/lover/ex-lover/dentist of a new user 6am 6am their buddy their contact the trash a new user's cell phone contacts has photos to share has photos to share there never were any photos there never were any photos unbelievable jackass unbelievable jackass

Seems close enough.

But my real question for you is which is it? Did a developer/Path act unethically, but you believe those actions are justified because people have families they need to care for? Or do you believe that Path/the developers did nothing wrong and I'm just applying my own morals to the situation? One or the other is a legitimate position to take (though I may disagree with your view), but you can't have both.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#328

Post by apike »

andreigheorghe wrote: post #132
apike wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it was a bug. It seems clear to me they were experimenting with some texting functionality where Path would notify users of things, it made it to production with bugs, and some subset of users got this terrible behaviour. Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

What are the reasons that make you so sure, though? To me, it's not clear at all just from the symptoms that it is a bug. It could just as well be a feature they're only testing out on 0.1% of the user base to see how their engagement or whatever improves.

Maybe I'm naive, but it seems just so insanely bad that I assumed no product manager or engineer would intentionally cause this behavior.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#329

Post by jimbokun »

danielweber wrote: post #209
seiji wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "Hippocratic Oath for developers" sounds like a great idea, but we vastly underestimate the number of jerkbags in the world. People want validation. Line-level employees want praise from coworkers and bosses. Executives want praise from their peers, investors, industry, and press. Concepts like ethics, "right," or even this-is-good-for-thie-world isn't a concern when faced with "X will increase my social status and…

Haven't seen this mentioned yet, but ... http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/11/01/92244... I often find myself saying, "I bet somebody got a really nice bonus for that feature." "That feature" is something aggressively user-hostile,...

A lot of the things mentioned there are good reasons for a curated App Store approach. It's almost impossible to stop arbitrary programs from abusing features of the OS on which they run, unless you have control over which ban poorly behaving programs from ever reaching end users.

Re: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

#330

Post by jimbokun »

smsm42 wrote: post #210
darxius wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. As a computer engineer in Canada, I must swear by the Code of Ethics because what I do (or potentially don't do) can cause harm. Ethics in computer-science-related fields are important and I think we do need a set of rules we can dogmatically follow like the Hippocratic Oath. Of course, the HO is different in that failing to follow can cause physical harm. However, the world is progressing quickly and mor…

So in Canada, software engineers never cause harm to anyone? Nice to know. >>>> I think we do need a set of rules we can dogmatically follow like the Hippocratic Oath. So you don't actually have to employ your own brain and your own moral judgement, because somebody already did it for you and wrote this nice set of rules, that you swore by Apollo to faithfully execute, without thinking, not unlike that box of wires a…

"So you don't actually have to employ your own brain and your own moral judgement, because somebody already did it for you and wrote this nice set of rules, that you swore by Apollo to faithfully execute, without thinking, not unlike that box of wires and silicon chips you are paid to play with? Nice arrangement, I suppose."

So I assume you never use any open source code in any of your programming projects, since you are fundamentally opposed to adopting any ideas that are not exclusively your own?

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