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Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

arstechnica.co.uk

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Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#61

Post by tw04 »

evgen wrote: post #44
parthdesai wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Select * from fb_users join wp_users on wp_users.id = fb_users.phone_number A really basic query that will give you all the fb users who have listed their phone number. Also i just realized while typing this, i think fb started allowing logging in using your phone number around the time they bought whatsapp. So even the profiles that didn't give their phone number to fb, they could get it via this logging system. ( I…

FB does not require phone numbers so you are just decorating with data that most users do not provide to FB. Not the same thing. Not saying FB could not join the tables given how much data they have, but it is not nearly as simple as this.

>with data that most users do not provide to FB.

And you're basing this on... what? Facebook nags you EVERY TIME you login for your phone number. EVERY TIME. I can tell you every last one of my friends who is non-technical has put in their phone number simply to get rid of the nag message. While my evidence is anecdotal, it flies in the face of yours. So I assume you have a citation for your "most users" comment.

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#62

Post by darklajid »

krona wrote: post #42
estefan wrote: post #35

> it being fined up to one percent of its annual turnover Now they're fines we should be proud of. Not like the pathetic smack-on-the-wrist fines they've dished out to banks and Google that they can earn back in milliseconds.

J.P. Morgan was fined $13 billion, which is hardly a slap on the wrist. The biggest fines in corporate history have been in the US; take the big tobacco civil cases, for instance.

Civil cases sounds like - forgive me - 'The coffee is too hot, pay for me enough money to import it fresh using my private jet for the rest of my life' cases.

What I'm trying to say is: I feel there's a difference between a fine ("You're misbehaving, correct that") and greed ("You caused pain and I'm going to benefit here"). Most large-ish rulings in the US that ever reached me are part of the latter.

Then again, this is a matter of culture and might be fine (hah!) in the society that caused this and just look weird from the outside.

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#63

Post by eli_gottlieb »

MikusR wrote: post #6
FussyZeus wrote: post #2

Is anything Facebook currently doing not shady? I'm not even trying to be snarky, it just seems like every single thing Facebook is doing lately is tainted with misinformation, corruption and spin. Just endless spin and lies.

People don't want positive or neutral news.

I do.

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#64

Post by pzh »

parthdesai wrote: post #45
evgen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB does not require phone numbers so you are just decorating with data that most users do not provide to FB. Not the same thing. Not saying FB could not join the tables given how much data they have, but it is not nearly as simple as this.

And that's why i said users who have listed their phone number. They can get phone number from users who use their phone number to log in but not have listed it in their profile (me), people who have enabled 2FA or from messenger. It's just a simple sql join. Ofcourse not at FB scale but this is me thinking about this problem for 10 seconds and also i'm in probably not even as intelligent as the dumbest guy working a…

And then there are people who just use a Google Voice number on Whatsapp instead of a real phone number, and many don't even have a phone number listed on Facebook. I'm actually surprised that anybody would give their real phone number to Facebook, Whatsapp, or any of the other "social networks"...

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#65

Post by kristianc »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #27
mkaziz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, I'd be okay with that. I guess I'm just an old fogey though.

Or just educated in history. Really, what is the longest period of time a country has existed without a repressive regime coming to power and abusing the institutions and populace?

Britain (well, England) has managed a good 350-450 years before.

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#66

Post by kristianc »

antisthenes wrote: post #46
droopyEyelids wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just educated in history. Really, what is the longest period of time a country has existed without a repressive regime coming to power and abusing the institutions and populace?

I don't know exactly how long, but I'd venture to say it's one of the small extremely homogeneous European countries like Switzerland or Denmark. It's an interesting question to ponder about in your free time.

With of those you're looking back about as far as 1815 and the Napoleonic wars, if you're counting backwards from today.

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#67

Post by TeMPOraL »

pzh wrote: post #64
parthdesai wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why i said users who have listed their phone number. They can get phone number from users who use their phone number to log in but not have listed it in their profile (me), people who have enabled 2FA or from messenger. It's just a simple sql join. Ofcourse not at FB scale but this is me thinking about this problem for 10 seconds and also i'm in probably not even as intelligent as the dumbest guy working a…

And then there are people who just use a Google Voice number on Whatsapp instead of a real phone number, and many don't even have a phone number listed on Facebook. I'm actually surprised that anybody would give their real phone number to Facebook, Whatsapp, or any of the other "social networks"...

2FA + the very fact that many - myself included - use Facebook, et al. primarily on a smartphone.

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#68

Post by parthdesai »

tw04 wrote: post #61
evgen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB does not require phone numbers so you are just decorating with data that most users do not provide to FB. Not the same thing. Not saying FB could not join the tables given how much data they have, but it is not nearly as simple as this.

>with data that most users do not provide to FB. And you're basing this on... what? Facebook nags you EVERY TIME you login for your phone number. EVERY TIME . I can tell you every last one of my friends who is non-technical has put in their phone number simply to get rid of the nag message. While my evidence is anecdotal, it flies in the face of yours. So I assume you have a citation for your "most users" comment.

So i did some search. Facebook app is installed 1 billion - 5 billion times on android alone. Facebook app has access to your contact card, your contacts and bunch of other stuff. Now let's say there are 20% of people who review these permissions and don't give fb access to everything. Even with that it leaves ~800 million apps with access to phone numbers. And this is Android alone.

I would be pretty surprised if evgen had same views if he wasn't working at fb.

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#69

Post by evgen »

parthdesai wrote: post #68
tw04 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>with data that most users do not provide to FB. And you're basing this on... what? Facebook nags you EVERY TIME you login for your phone number. EVERY TIME . I can tell you every last one of my friends who is non-technical has put in their phone number simply to get rid of the nag message. While my evidence is anecdotal, it flies in the face of yours. So I assume you have a citation for your "most users" comment.

So i did some search. Facebook app is installed 1 billion - 5 billion times on android alone. Facebook app has access to your contact card, your contacts and bunch of other stuff. Now let's say there are 20% of people who review these permissions and don't give fb access to everything. Even with that it leaves ~800 million apps with access to phone numbers. And this is Android alone. I would be pretty surprised if ev…

Have left and have been working on my own startup for several months now, but I am aware of how some of the data is siloed at FB and also that WhatsApp was run very independently (as in, almost no operational contact between the two companies) up until the summer at least. I don't doubt that FB can tie a specific FB user id to a WA user id, and if they tried hard they could tie a large fraction together using a variety of data sources (certainly not a 'one-line SQL query') but between 10-25% would fail due to bad data on either the FB or WA end. A partially complete data set is not as useful as you might think...

Re: Facebook charged with misleading EU on $22B WhatsApp merger

#70

Post by hobarrera »

> [Facebook] claimed that it wouldn't be able to knit together user IDs, thereby combining the data of the two services.

Facebook REQUIRES your phone number when signing up nowadays (sometimes it asks a bit later - when you try to message peolple.

On Facebook Messenger, you sign up using you phone number.

On WhatsApp you sign up using your phone number.

I think it's pretty obvious that is was trivial to connect the two accounts.

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