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Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

arstechnica.com

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Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#91

Post by captn3m0 »

vlan0 wrote: post #83
lupire wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if a user consented to Netflix-based chat, Facebook overshared all chat data, instead of only the Netflix chat data, because they couldn't be bothered to build a properly isolated API? That's like asking permission to read and write your entire phone, just to provide the ability to write and read back a file.

What incentive does FB have to limit that access? Feels like MBAs would just see that as a cost/burden? We know FB does give a fuck about privacy, so that’s never gonna be a reason.

Courts across the world fining them.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#92

Post by _heimdall »

margorczynski wrote: post #79
_heimdall wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't whether Facebook used private messages for ad targeting (the claim they denied), its whether Facebook used private messages at all. Who cares if it was for ads, giving third party companies access should be a huge problem with or without ads.

This should make it a no-go for any sane person that is aware of that, unfortunately not many are. I always try to convince people I know to ditch Messanger/WA/etc. in favor of Signal, and in many cases I've succeeded.

For better or worse, I found that the people willing to keep Signal installed and up to date largely just to get in touch with me was a good proxy for the list of people that really matter most to me.

I didn't win many over on the importance of privacy or Signal, but the willingness of some to put up with it because it matters to me says a lot about my relationship with them.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#93

Post by sunshowers »

benreesman wrote: post #84
nemothekid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If substantiated, such accusations would be among the most damning in the history of technology. If substantiated? Just search Onavo on HN search - I thought this was widely known for years.

As a former employee until 2018, I heard the words “Project Ghostbusters” two days ago. I was peripherally aware of something called Onavo but I had no notion that anyone was talking about “kits”, we all thought it was some kind of metrics thing that was sort of iffy sounding but lots of iffy ideas got proposed by some PM looking to make a name and shot down by the grownups, what is alleged would have provoked a riot…

Ex-FB here -- I do feel like I knew about the general scope of what Onavo did, which was to incentivize people so FB could snoop on TLS traffic and grab data about competitor usage.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#94

Post by loa_in_ »

scarface_74 wrote: post #61
lupire wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collision is part of antitrust. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/collusion#:~:text=Collusion%... .

You can have collusion without being a monopoly. Your two neighborhood grocery stores can illegally collude even if there are 100 in your city

That's true but also very irrelevant

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#95

Post by jdminhbg »

reissbaker wrote: post #70
chatmasta wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web was rampant with these patterns in the early 2010s when OAuth didn't exist, and HTTPS the exception rather than the rule. The most egregious example was probably LinkedIn's GMail "integration," ostensibly used to invite your GMail contacts to LinkedIn. Back then, that sort of thing felt innocuous. But the implementation was even worse. Due to lack of OAuth and MFA, you literally entered your GMail password in…

Yeah definitely. There are still some pretty bad patterns out there; for example, if you try to add an event from Facebook Events to your Google Calendar, instead of generating a normal ICS file or event link, they... ask for read/write access to your entire Google Calendar account. No thanks! Similar to apps that ask for access to your entire Contacts list to "find your existing friends"... You can bet they're uploa…

Would be nice if APIs offered more granular permissions. Almost every one of these is global read/write so it’s impossible to distinguish between good and bad actors.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#96

Post by benreesman »

sunshowers wrote: post #93
benreesman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former employee until 2018, I heard the words “Project Ghostbusters” two days ago. I was peripherally aware of something called Onavo but I had no notion that anyone was talking about “kits”, we all thought it was some kind of metrics thing that was sort of iffy sounding but lots of iffy ideas got proposed by some PM looking to make a name and shot down by the grownups, what is alleged would have provoked a riot…

Ex-FB here -- I do feel like I knew about the general scope of what Onavo did, which was to incentivize people so FB could snoop on TLS traffic and grab data about competitor usage.

Could be a question of what we worked on. I did Ads ML Infrastructure, Abuse Detection Systems (spam basically), and then more ML Infrastructure on IG Feed/Stories. I was deep enough in the engine room it was all more or less feature embeddings. So it’s probably fair to say I would have known less about strategic maneuvering than plenty of less tenured folks closer to the surface.

I knew it sounded vaguely sketchy but you remember how many vaguely sketchy things some frisky new PM tried to get pushed through a launch card meeting only to have someone on Sheryl’s radar detonate it on the launch pad. The timeframe is the main reason I’m skeptical: Sheryl didn’t put up with crap like that she knew what was at stake.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#97

Post by soraminazuki »

cm2012 wrote: post #85
tsunamihippo wrote: post #21

The article skips a lot of context to make it sound significantly worse than reality. Facebook didn't just randomly give Netflix access to everyone's messages. Specific user would need to purposefully log in to the Netflix app with their Facebook account in order to grant Netflix access to the chat functionality (intended to send movie recommendations to Facebook friends inside the Netflix app). https://about.fb.com/…

If this wasn't Facebook it wouldn't even be news.

I hope you’re being sarcastic? Or is that actually your stance on people’s privacy rights?

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#98

Post by k8svet »

k8svet wrote: post #40
tsunamihippo wrote: post #21

The article skips a lot of context to make it sound significantly worse than reality. Facebook didn't just randomly give Netflix access to everyone's messages. Specific user would need to purposefully log in to the Netflix app with their Facebook account in order to grant Netflix access to the chat functionality (intended to send movie recommendations to Facebook friends inside the Netflix app). https://about.fb.com/…

So... this sounds like OAuth, with a nice consent scene that says I'm giving Netflix this access to my FB DNs. That's what you mean, right? Otherwise, what the fuck is the difference? . And really, as if this makes anything better, wow. Imagine having the feeling of obligation that you have to stick your neck out over this. Just take your over-sized salary and be happy knowing you work for one of the worst companies…

Lmao, love seeing what HN decides is controversial these days.

God give me the power of some of y'all's utterly depraved self-serving self-delusion. I at least acknowledge the moral compromise of how my labor accrues in the system instead of burying my god damn head in the sand about it and offering poor incoherent defenses of my employee in public. And I make a third of what I could make at FB, and still probably don't contribute as negatively to the world.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#99

Post by thisgoesnowhere »

scarface_74 wrote: post #63
waveBidder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

open protocols in the case of Facebook and banning studios from owning/exclusivity with distributors in the case of Netflix.

So you are saying that no one can distribute their own work on thier own website? Where do you draw the line? Can I not create my own video and put it on my website? Can I not work with friends and we all post our own video on our own website that we jointly own? How do we stop foreign studios from distribution over the internet? Do we block them too? Why stop at films? Should book authors also not be slowed to self…

This slippery slope/where do you draw the line argument is very weak.

It's like saying me accidentally spilling a bit while doing a oil change in my garage is the same as BP spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude.

Scale matters. And "where you draw the line" can be defined loosely to be left up to interpretation at the time.

Re: Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy

#100

Post by kazinator »

soraminazuki wrote: post #97
cm2012 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this wasn't Facebook it wouldn't even be news.

I hope you’re being sarcastic? Or is that actually your stance on people’s privacy rights?

Rather, it seems like cynicism about the media, than a stance on rights.
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