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New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

reuters.com

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Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#51

Post by WilliamEdward »

rock_hard wrote: post #35
chmaynard wrote: post #13

Ever wonder why Facebook is giving everyone on earth so much free software and processing power? They seem to be making money, how do they do it? [10 minutes of deep thought] Ok, we get it. If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Edit: If a for-profit company offers you something of value at no cost, you or someone else will end up paying for it later. Advert…

Most everything on the internet is free...so are you saying we should just stop using it?

This is a shortsighted viewpoint of how value, money, and the concept of 'free' works. Someone had to put in effort to put up the websites you use for free. Someone is paying or motivating those developers to keep doing that so you don't have to.

The problem is all free software comes at the cost of either being made by someone who is doing it out of kindness or someone who is pawning your data. You cannot know which one it is.

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#52

Post by CamperBob2 »

East-Link wrote: post #21
politician wrote: post #4

nit, > Facebook is facing a slew of lawsuits and regulatory inquiries over privacy issues, including a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation into disclosures that Facebook inappropriately shared information belonging to 87 million users with the defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica is not defunct, but rather changed its name to Emerdata. It's too bad Reuters didn't…

>Cambridge Analytica is not defunct, but rather changed its name to Emerdata. It's too bad Reuters didn't get that part correct. That's not true, I used to work there. Everyone was laid off in July or so. I haven't heard of anyone joining Emerdata, and I do see those guys now and again. I know where all the technical people work. Emerdata was created before the media shitstorm to absorb all the pointless corporate en…

It was just an ad tech company with a few political clients and some snake oil regarding psychographics.

Your snake oil evidently outperformed the best modern medicine. So, congratulations for that, I guess.

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#53

Post by WilliamEdward »

iscrewyou wrote: post #44
chiefalchemist wrote: post #15

> "The report said that the company can access data in some cases even when the user is not signed into Facebook or does not have a Facebook account." I realize frivolous comments on HN are frowned upon but frankly this leaves me speechless.

You know, uninstalling all the apps and starting fresh is exactly what I've been wanting to do for a while. Now I have the motivation for it. Goodjob developers (ones with the Facebook SDK), you played yourself.

I believe your data (well not necessarily "your" data because facebook doesnt know who you are), but some data created by you can be accessed by facebook via other people's profiles simply by way of hearing your voice through the other person's app. This can be true for any app with access to microphone. I have also started fresh but I believe the problem goes well beyond just deleting your profiles and apps.

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#54

Post by bduerst »

detaro wrote: post #27
alex_chang wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Next story that's going to come out is how Google is "doing the same thing" via Google Analytics etc.

Doesn't Google Analytics forbid passing actual personal user data into it? I thought that's how they solved the GDPR compliance issues, by explicitly declaring it as not fit for personal data (outside what GA collects and anonymizes itself, like IPs).

Yes, their TOS specifically prohibits this: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2795983

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#55

Post by Jonanin »

vageli wrote: post #47
doctorpangloss wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great that "if it's free, you should run away" or "if you're not the customer, you're the product" or any of those other sayings are finally been seen as extremely reductive.

> It's great that "if it's free, you should run away" or "if you're not the customer, you're the product" or any of those other sayings are finally been seen as extremely reductive. Is it really the case that we've forgotten "There's no such thing as a free lunch?"

That's not the same thing.

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#56

Post by geofft »

jniedrauer wrote: post #18
chmaynard wrote: post #13

Ever wonder why Facebook is giving everyone on earth so much free software and processing power? They seem to be making money, how do they do it? [10 minutes of deep thought] Ok, we get it. If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Edit: If a for-profit company offers you something of value at no cost, you or someone else will end up paying for it later. Advert…

> If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Where does free software fit in this?

Understand why it's free and where the offerer derives value.

- If it's from a company that is commoditizing its money-making products' internal dependencies, and it is in your interest for the software to become a commodity (e.g., you're pondering switching to Linux, which has patches from Google), great. Tough luck for those commercializing that software, though - so just make sure that development is sustainable.

- If it's from a company that's commoditizing its money-making products' complements (see https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ if you haven't), think carefully about how that complement relationship works. If it's Red Hat producing a window manager, sure, whatever. If it's Red Hat producing a complex infrastructure platform, and they make money based on support to make that platform work, maybe not so much.

- If it's from a company that's making money in an unclear, unrelated way (e.g., you're pondering using Android, which is developed by Google), look extremely skeptically and figure out what their real incentives are. There is a legitimate explanation for Android and Chrome: it's in Google's interest to promote the web as a platform, because they make money on web advertising. But that explanation might not be totally convincing to you, in which case running the other way is a fine answer.

- If it's from a source whose motivations are not linked to the capitalist machine (e.g., someone with a well-paying day job who's working on a side project on weekends), that's fine. Note that things from companies are almost never in this category.

- If it's from a company that hasn't yet realized that it's beholden to the capitalist machine (e.g., the early years of Ubuntu, or a young company with too much VC money), you might as well take advantage of it in the short term but have some plans about the long term.

- If it's from a source that you can pay, despite it being free, and you can afford to pay for it, do so. Pitch in to that developer's Patreon, buy the paid license for the neat monitoring product your company is using, etc.

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#57

Post by roblabla »

elorant wrote: post #42
randycupertino wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This scheme would only work assuming those people are all on facebook and actively use it, correct?

Yes. And they have to use the same e-mail with the one you know.

Not necessarily. Facebook just needs to have associated the email you know with their profile somehow. They can do this silently, thanks to their tracking. There was a thread about it on HN a few weeks ago ok another facebook story.

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#59

Post by bleh123 »

This takes me back to all those videos earlier last year claiming FB is "Listening to you through your mic to target ads" , it's most likely one of these third party apps doing sketchy stuff and sending interest data back to FB through the custom audience endpoint.

Re: New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

#60

Post by llukas »

ipsum2 wrote: post #38
elorant wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scariest thing about Facebook is that they allow advertisers to target by e-mail. This has a number of implications. Say I want to target a specific individual. I create a bunch of fake profiles to meet the minimum number of required e-mails for an ad and then launch it. This way the only real person who's gonna see it is the one I'm targeting. Now imagine running this scheme with everyone you know. Your ex, frie…

I'm not following this. So we have some victim's email that they've linked to Facebook, and we add some fake emails to pad out the minimum number of required emails. So you have to design a series of ads that are enticing enough to click on, and the victim will click on it. When they realize they clicked on a fake site, they'll exit it. How many people here have clicked on Facebook ads in the last week? It seems incr…

This was recently on hn:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-secret-facebook-war...

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