Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

ftc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 135 posts

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#61

Post by rdouble »

seiji wrote: post #51
freehunter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family had a major falling out with my father, to the point where myself and my sister had a restraining order against him when I was 7 and she was 9. I haven't seen him or talked to him in 16 years. After Facebook deleted my privacy settings, I had a message from him sitting in my inbox the next day. My sister called me, crying, because she had gotten the same message. Both of our accounts were previously unsearc…

An article a few years ago talked about what privacy means to rich kids who have everything. Go to a $40k per year boarding school that mummy and daddy pay for? What do you have to hide? Not much. Then the kids get older and decide "no secrets for anybody!" What's the harm in sharing your life? It's a net win. If you see James got a new turbo jet ski, won't you want to work harder to get one too? Sharing can save the…

On the contrary, don't rich people have a lot more to hide?

Just knowing that your kid is enrolled at Le Rosey signals to a criminal that she is worth kidnapping... and the last status update shows her headed to Ibizia for spring break. In contrast, nobody cares if another poor kid "likes" Justin Bieber. Over-sharing seems a lot riskier for the rich (and famous.) It would be interesting to read the article you mentioned. It's hard to imagine an argument that the rich are not more concerned with privacy than regular people.

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#62

Post by Silhouette »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #50
Bud wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They lied. The fact that there was, according to you, no binding contract, has no bearing on the question of whether they lied or not. They did lie. Case closed.

Even if you accept it was a lie, it's not fraud. Facebook "lies" like Subway "lies" about losing weight by eating there. You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.

> You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.

Fortunately, the law in many countries does not permit such one-sided terms.

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#63

Post by tbrownaw »

[deleted] wrote: post #14
johnthedebs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what it means is that, in this case, the FTC gets to watch and make sure Facebook complies. If they don't, they get penalized for it. FTA: The proposed order also contains standard record-keeping provisions to allow the FTC to monitor compliance with its order. and then further down: Each violation of such an order may result in a civil penalty of up to $16,000. I really hope that's up to $16,000 per person f…

[deleted]

My employer handles insurance claims. I have an email sitting in my inbox right now, explaining that if we get a certain thing wrong it will get us fined up to $1000 per claim per day until it's fixed. Not because we screwed up and got in trouble, but because that's just how things always are in this industry.

So no, I don't find that unlikely at all. In fact it not being per person is what would be absurd.

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#64

Post by dreamdu5t »

rhizome wrote: post #47
tokenadult wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what legal basis would you expect a financial penalty for a free, voluntary-participation online service that did the things that the FTC found that Facebook did? What does the law on the subject give the FTC authority to do?

The law has long been castrated on your points. The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).

You choose to divulge any information you consider to be private. Absent an actual formal agreement contingent upon giving that information (which an internal policy is most definitely not), I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me.

Unless you're going to argue that you own anything you happen to know, even after other people know it? Unless you're going to argue that a posted policy on a free website constitutes a binding agreement?

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#65

Post by tbrownaw »

rhizome wrote: post #47
tokenadult wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what legal basis would you expect a financial penalty for a free, voluntary-participation online service that did the things that the FTC found that Facebook did? What does the law on the subject give the FTC authority to do?

The law has long been castrated on your points. The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).

The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).

Trying to apply rules made for physical items (if I take it you don't have it any more) to things that act completely differently is a really bad idea.

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#66

Post by Bud »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #50
Bud wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They lied. The fact that there was, according to you, no binding contract, has no bearing on the question of whether they lied or not. They did lie. Case closed.

Even if you accept it was a lie, it's not fraud. Facebook "lies" like Subway "lies" about losing weight by eating there. You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.

You're dodging the question of whether it is a lie, which is unsurprising. I say again: Facebook lied.

You didn't mention fraud, and I made no comment on fraud. I said they lied. They did.

As for the clumsy smokescreen analogy about Subway, allow me to point out the obvious:

Facebook made promises to users about how FACEBOOK would handle the personal property of said users. These are concrete, easily-definable promises...the kind which are easy to analyze to see if the promise was kept.

It wasn't kept. Furthermore, as the FTC documented in plain English, there was a pattern of behavior, over and over again, that shows any reasonable person that not only did Facebook lie, they lied with prior intent. They never had any intention of keeping those promises and they broke them in the most egregious ways possible.

By contrast, when Subway implies that customers can lose weight by eating certain foods there, they are, obviously, making no promises about how Subway will behave in the future, except an implied promise to be honest about how many calories are in their food (required by law), and to provide some lo-cal options (which they do).

Really bad analogy, in every way.

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#67

Post by marquis »

freehunter wrote: post #48
marquis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would donate to your ACLU legal action against FB. I am consistently editing myself on FB, even in private groups, because of a sinking suspicion that with a flick-of-a-switch it can all be public.

I'm not sure that any laws were broken. It's not like we kept the restraining order active for 16 years, and his message wasn't really harassment, more like attempted atonement. At any rate, I do wish companies had to be held to their own site rules, legally. If Pystar break's Apple's TOS they get sued out of business, but if Facebook breaks their privacy settings they get a slap on the wrist from the FTC.

If you do decide to file please let us know. The entire situation sounds like a nightmare and I wonder how many others have faced this issue. On a more encouraging note I recently had to report a fake FB profile that was used to harass a family member and it was removed promptly, which surprised me.

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#68

Post by rhizome »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #64
rhizome wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law has long been castrated on your points. The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).

You choose to divulge any information you consider to be private. Absent an actual formal agreement contingent upon giving that information (which an internal policy is most definitely not), I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me. Unless you're going to argue that you own anything you happen to know, even after other people know it? Unless you're going to argue that a…

I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me.

If that was true in all cases, the story we're commenting on wouldn't exist.

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#69

Post by DanielStraight »

jellicle wrote: post #15

So the penalty for ongoing repeated lies and fraud is.... nothing. Zero. The FTC has investigated, and the settlement is zero money and zero penalties. Not one dollar. Whew! I'm glad they were punished! They won't do THAT again! The U.S. is really in late-stage empire breakdown. I don't think there is any significant enforcement of any laws whatsoever against companies and people that are reasonably well connected. T…

So... quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Perhaps the problem isn't that there's no one to watch the watchmen, but that we're over-reliant on watchmen.

You don't need the FTC to keep Facebook from sharing your private information.

I'm not saying Facebook did nothing wrong, and I'm not saying the FTC is doing nothing wrong now. I'm saying that none of it matters if you delete your own account.

You don't need to worry about who's watching the watchmen when you watch out for yourself. (Can anyone translate that to Latin?)

Re: Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years

#70

Post by Bud »

d_r wrote: post #36
brown9-2 wrote: post #2

Wow, this list is brutal: -In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. They didn't warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance. - Facebook represented that third-party apps that users' installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact,…

"- Facebook represented that third-party apps that users' installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users' personal data – data the apps didn't need." Privacy/ethics issues aside, from a pure developer standpoint, isn't this just a feature? Where do we draw the line between functionality and privacy? User A allows user B to see her d…

Privacy/ethics issues aside, from a pure developer standpoint, isn't this just a feature? Where do we draw the line between functionality and privacy?

This is a reasonable question. Where I personally would draw the line is, "functionality" implies to me that the app would only access user info when it needs to do so for some FUNCTIONAL purpose. If the app does not need the data and is not doing anything legitimate with it, then obviously, the user's privacy should be respected and said info should not be accessed.

Post reply on HN