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Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

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Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#61

Post by ggg9990 »

bitumen wrote: post #53
kbenson wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure Digg had enough money lying around to just buy the next "cool" thing that comes along, as Facebook has done a few times now.

It’s a turgid fantasy that you can predict, buy, and incubate the next big thing reliably. If that were true, there would be no failed VC’s.

Facebook doesn’t need to predict — they can buy when it’s already big. They are able to monetize users much better than random startup social network so they are able to pay much more per engaged user than the company could get from VCs or the public market.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#62

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

The sad, sad truth.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#63

Post by kchoudhu »

If Zuckerberg has any game at all, he will welcome this investigation, 'educate' the regulators, and then build a regulatory moat around Facebook that no one can breach.

The big four banks did this after 2009, and they are even more entrenched and systematically important than they were before. Expect Facebook to borrow liberally from their playbook.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#64

Post by jakelazaroff »

mrtksn wrote: post #31
hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg. If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away. Remember IE(stands for Internet Explorer)? Using Firefox and later Chrome became a crusade and the almighty brand of the richest person in the world that holds the monopoly on computers platforms bled to de…

"Companies and products sometimes fail" doesn't really address the claim "the market doesn't seem to punish gross misconduct or negligence."

Re: GP's examples, Uber is a "user-facing" company, and the Wells Fargo and Bank of America scandals involved consumer services.

Also, it's not like companies are incapable of making conscientious decisions with regard to other companies with which they do business.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#65

Post by ggg9990 »

iskander wrote: post #25
hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

I deleted Uber during that campaign and so did at least a dozen people that I know. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think Lyft's market share roughly doubled within several months. How did "the market" not notice?

“I dance with a traffic cone on my head and so do a dozen people I know. In fact in the last three months our numbers have quadrupled. The world has definitely taken notice of traffic-cone dancing.”

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#67

Post by binocarlos »

mrtksn wrote: post #41
kbenson wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure Digg had enough money lying around to just buy the next "cool" thing that comes along, as Facebook has done a few times now.

I added IE to my example to illustrate that having all the money in the world may not save you when your brand becomes toxic. Some may say that FB users don't care but with IE it also was just geeks and devs, but it turned into a crusade and now everyone "knows" that the first thing you do after you have a fresh PC is to install Chrome.

Perhaps part of that was that IE was really bad at it's job and as users were told about Chrome and Firefox and they tried it and it was much faster - they switched because IE was not nearly as good. Facebook is pretty good at it's job - despite questionable practices. If Facebook started to suck from a user perspective (a bit like MySpace did) - users would move to another thing in a shot.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#68

Post by lumberjack »

>Foremost among these tools is enforcement action against companies that fail to honor their privacy promises

This is the crux of the issue. The problem is that when Facebook asks for "location information", the consequences of this are not being conveyed to the user. The user might think, "ah they want my location for the weather recommendations and event suggestions in my neighbourhood". They do not realise how something so "innocuous" as location information could be weaponised against them.

I used location data as an example because you could infer almost everything about a person just from that. You could know their social circle, their approximate tax bracket, which banks they use, who is their lawyer, their accountant and their wealth manager, their familiar situation, how healthy they eat, how healthy they are, whether they are chronically ill, and what type of chronic diseases they might have, what activities they engage in, what are their political leanings, I could go on, I do not think this is anywhere near an exhaustive list...

The user does not know that Facebook it going to tip off the insurance provider about the user's unhealthy eating habits or his chronic medical condition. Or maybe tip off his bank that he has substantial wealth elsewhere.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#69

Post by Domenic_S »

jumpman500 wrote: post #54
hart_russell wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is an apt analogy. Facebook users become so entrenched with their social network, pictures, etc. that it is much harder to delete than a bunch of interest categories.

I don't know. Once you get your photos off of Facebook I think you can leave really easily. You can still message all your important friends through sms or your chosen chat app. Snapchat exists as an alternative for casual photo sharing. Reddit or Twitter for posting news, memes or funny videos. I think people exaggerate the importance of Facebook. Young people can adapt to new technology quickly. I know I was able t…

> Young people can adapt to new technology quickly. I know I was able to drop Facebook pretty easily.

Older people can't. I think sharing photos with extended (ie, older) family is a huge use case for Facebook.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#70

Post by erikpukinskis »

pknerd wrote: post #49
pknerd wrote: post #42

Agree with those who says it will not effect Fb much and it's incomparable with other past apps/social media platforms. The reason is that unlike others Facebook exploited us, humans in such a way with help of technology and psychology that there is almost no friction to get into Facebook world. On top of that the content people see on their feeds make them glued all the time. I have not been using Facebook for weeks…

Not sure why was I down voted? A little explanation could help.

I don’t know either, but it’s against the HN posting guidelines to inquire. It’s hard to know where sentiment comes from, I’d recommend not dwelling on it too long. Just keep writing comments you believe in.
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