Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
1–10 of 370 posts
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#2If journals are going to rehash Facebook blah word by word, syllable by syllable, then I expect free endorsements to alternatives. It's a small public service in exchange for the free content and clicks.
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#3"Without permission" is the crucial part. Of course, you have to give the app the permission to do it when you install it, otherwise it will refuse to run. That is why the Android permissions model is fundamentally broken.
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#4"Without permission" is the crucial part. Of course, you have to give the app the permission to do it when you install it, otherwise it will refuse to run. That is why the Android permissions model is fundamentally broken.
Could you explain how permissions could be better achieved? Also, could you provide examples of platforms with good permission/security model?
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#5The Facebook blog post includes this screenshot [0]. That's definitely an opt-in, although I could imagine a non-technical person clicking through it without reading the grey text. Better than nothing.
[0]: https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/opt-in_scre...
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#6I notice the Facebook response is all written in present tense - technically not specifying whether they were abusing the laxness of android v16 up until Oct 2017...
And I trust everything Facebook say precisely as much a Zuckerberg told us all we should with his much-quoted quip "They trust me. Dumb fucks."
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#7"Without permission" is the crucial part. Of course, you have to give the app the permission to do it when you install it, otherwise it will refuse to run. That is why the Android permissions model is fundamentally broken.
Could you explain how permissions could be better achieved? Also, could you provide examples of platforms with good permission/security model?
iOS is pretty good. The onus for dealing with rejected permissions (in many cases) is put onto the app developer.
For example, if you make a photo editing app, you need to request access to the user's photo gallery at runtime of the app.
If they refuse, it's fully expected that your app will continue to work with reduced functionality. IIRC you will have trouble getting approved for the app store if your app breaks after permissions are refused.
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#8I'm sure they had their "permission" on page 27 of the terms of service. This isn't news...
My opinion is still that those terms of services are silly. If I ever do start my own business, one of the things on the checklist is to have a minimal, if any, terms of service, because nobody wants to waste time reading them, and 99% of what is in ToSes is in the law anyway. Except, of course, data collection beyond functional requirements. That would be a good thing to hide in long ToSes.
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#9Much of this blame goes on Android and some on iOS/Apple.
The phone/call permissions, especially for Android, were needed for any app that wants to suspend when a call comes in and for analytics/social libs.
I always hated that about Android especially because even harmless games made it look like you were taking contacts and monitoring calls.
Of course this would be abused and it is all over the place. Unfortunately lots of apps/games are specifically built to harvest data and this was a major flaw in their permissions handling. You shouldn't need a monitor phone calls permission to allow a call to come in over your app while someone is using or playing it.
Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission
#10In the last days, FB stock has lost ~15% of its value (from $185 to $160), that's like 2 Twitters..
Next earnings call will be early May probably.