Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min • Hacker News Board

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#401

Post by dguest » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

egorfine wrote: post #370

ryandrake wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always, throughout a 25+ year career, kept personal business on personal devices and work business on work devices, and never cross the streams. Oddly, this is really controversial on HN, though! I've gotten so many weirdly angry responses when suggesting people try it, like it's a huge inconvenience to just bring a personal phone to work in order to do your banking and fuck around posting on HN. It's so much ea…

> I've always, throughout a 25+ year career, kept personal business on personal devices and work business on work devices, and never cross the streams. Interestingly, I have a similar career and I have never ever split personal and work businesses on different notebooks/phones. On the other hand I would never even consider working with a company that monitors my screen or has insight into the computer I'm working on.

I'm the same.

When people who maintain this separation travel for work, do they just bring both along? My laptop is often the heaviest thing in my bag, I'd hate to bring two.

[late edit: I meant work travel]

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#402

Post by 999900000999 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

anticorporate wrote: post #149

everdrive wrote: post #17

I don't work for Meta, but how many more years do I need to work in tech? I'm in my 40s and my kids are young. I've already set up 529s for them, and am paying for some expensive home upgrades. Maybe when that is finished and I've built up a buffer I can switch industries for the last 5-10 years of my working life. Curious if anyone here has any similar plans.

I quit tech at 40. I still do cool things with technology, but now at a community-owned grocery co-op. I can't recommend leaving tech highly enough. My cortisol levels are so much lower than they used to be. I don't have to schedule my life around EMEA and APAC meetings outside of my normal hours. I only work more than 40 hours a week if I feel like it, which I sometimes do, because I actually enjoy my work now. I ma…

> but I could probably sell my belongings and live a very good life on a beach somewhere in Latin America

I actually think it’s easier to cut back vs chasing some magic high networth before retirement.

The average salary in Costa Rica is only 1200$ a month. Meaning if you live an average life there you might be able to retire with 240k. Assuming 6% yields per year.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#403

Post by wl » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

macNchz wrote: post #373

wl wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think IT departments also tend to underestimate the risk they pose when they manage machines. Look at Stryker, where intruders used Intune to wipe all the company's devices. The ability to do that shouldn't exist, but the IT department happily rolled out the means of their own destruction in the name of compliance and making their lives easier.

Device management is definitely a big hole to punch into each machine, but, once you're above a handful of staff, managing devices manually is not really tenable, and I do think the restrictions provided by device management have tangible benefits (it's amazing what people will download and run without a thought). Arguably the risks of the MDM should be assessed and mitigated with some kind of defense in depth approa…

I think I'm probably coming at this from a different perspective than IT people.

I've worked on IoT products where we've deployed fleets of thousands of devices without user interfaces placed all over the world in random, inaccessible places, hanging off cellular radios. We're definitely not managing those manually. Architecting management systems for that is always interesting. Sometimes the question would come up, "why don't we do X?" where X necessarily included the ability to brick the entire fleet (and probably kill the company) in 5 minutes. My philosophy was that certain things are too dangerous to exist, no matter how useful they might be.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#404

Post by righthand » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

root-parent wrote: post #53

The world smallest violin will be rendered in React... Why do these employees get this generous toggle, when we got zero minutes and a shadow profile?

Client side react with three state changes that makes the violin janky.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#405

Post by Havoc » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

So employees unhappy about being tracked are expected to explicitly draw attention to the times their doing something where they’re uncomfortable about being monitored?

This has got to be something a blue haired HR person came up with

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#406

Post by vanuatu » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #364

vanuatu wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not to defend zuck but its a common misconception that meta sells data advertisers dont see the personal data they buy for ad placement

Why should anyone at all care about this distinction?

i care that my data isnt being sold

i dont really care that i get targeted ads, in fact i prefer targeted ads vs. ones that are of no use to me

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#407

Post by egorfine » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

dguest wrote: post #401

egorfine wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always, throughout a 25+ year career, kept personal business on personal devices and work business on work devices, and never cross the streams. Interestingly, I have a similar career and I have never ever split personal and work businesses on different notebooks/phones. On the other hand I would never even consider working with a company that monitors my screen or has insight into the computer I'm working on.

I'm the same. When people who maintain this separation travel for work, do they just bring both along? My laptop is often the heaviest thing in my bag, I'd hate to bring two. [late edit: I meant work travel]

I believe they do not bring work laptop. A separation is a separation.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#408

Post by pesus » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

dguest wrote: post #401

egorfine wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always, throughout a 25+ year career, kept personal business on personal devices and work business on work devices, and never cross the streams. Interestingly, I have a similar career and I have never ever split personal and work businesses on different notebooks/phones. On the other hand I would never even consider working with a company that monitors my screen or has insight into the computer I'm working on.

I'm the same. When people who maintain this separation travel for work, do they just bring both along? My laptop is often the heaviest thing in my bag, I'd hate to bring two. [late edit: I meant work travel]

I don't generally bring either. If I'm traveling, I'm on vacation.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#409

Post by sidcool » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

LucidLynx wrote: post #22

I have a serious question to anyone working at Meta and reading this: HOW can you still work at this company!? Why don't you quit this very toxic company, and start working at another place or even on your own? I genuinely don't understand... Let just Meta die!

Gavin Belson:

The Scene: Gavin’s development team complains that his new tech ("The Box") is antiquated. He fires back in frustration: "Why did you all take my money then, you entitled little pricks? You all think you’re John Lennon until someone waves a dollar in your face!"

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#410

Post by siren2026 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #90

baggachipz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more like $,$$$,$$$.$$

All the more reason to head out. A few years on a salary like that and you may find that you can live fairly comfortably for a long time… in a place where the cost of living and housing are inexpensive. I have an aunt who is quite old, who has been living for decades in a trailer in Eloy, Arizona. I suspect few people reading this will think that's any kind of an "escape plan", but I have been jealous of her seemingl…

Most people at Meta (or other FAANGs) are caught up in the game. I have witnessed this first hand in the bay area.

They forgot what the end-goal is. They are just on the hamster wheel waiting for the next vest or next promo so they can brag they were made "staff" or "director". Every other discussion was about artificial levels and other corporate BS that those companies put in front of you to keep you grinding.

Meanwhile when you ask why not retire now that they saved 10M$. Most of them have no idea what they would spend their time doing. Their biggest achievement and satisfaction is to play that artificial money game.

The mean became the end. Very sad.