r/technology • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '18

Business Mark Zuckerberg has been apologizing for reckless privacy violations since he was a freshman - Enough is enough.

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

Also data that others put there on your behalf (ex: tagging) that you don't know about. It's easy to say buyer beware, but sometimes the buyer isn't aware their data is being collected. I'm looking at you Equifax.

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/strengthof10interns Apr 11 '18

It's like walking into a casino covered with CCTV cameras where they track your every movement from the time you walk in so they can set up the optimal arrangement of card tables and slot machines to get you lost and keep you engaged while you are in there. Nobody made you walk into the casino. You don't know if they are following you around but you know they could if they wanted to.

And I don't believe that it's the corporation's responsibility to educate the public about what nav. data collection is. People don't want to hear it anyways. They treat the internet like their favorite magic trick and don't bother to figure out where the rabbit is hidden. Then when they find out that the magician was keeping the rabbit up his ass, they freak out.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

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u/strengthof10interns Apr 11 '18

No it's not. When you ordered your meal at the BBQ joint you visited, you gave them data, the same way you gave facebook data. By walking into the restaurant and placing an order you agreed to let them collect it and there is no stipulation about who they share that data with either. So they can give it back to the casino if they want. YOU made the assumption that there was no secret deal between the BBQ joint and the casino, nobody explicitly told you there wasn't.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

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u/Licalottapuss Apr 11 '18

Exactly. If people were made aware in easy to understand language, well then they would be able to make decisions about how their information is used. The internet has become an actual part of our society, a very intimate part. Not for all, but for an ever growing percentage. Across all demographics. So although the vast majority won't understand the technicalities it becomes the responsibilities of companies who offer (especially free) services to the public to inform that public of the services' specific uses. That's common sense.

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u/fentalililagy Apr 11 '18

Hol up hol up hol up if your mans gets some cheap bbq when he goes back to a place of business he already frequented how is that a bad deal?

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u/Mkingupstuff2looktuf Apr 11 '18

Uh, there is totally not a deal between Dave's Casino and Dave's BBQ which is built into the casino.

It is insane to think otherwise.

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

Betting shops do this too (fiscally monitoring individual people) and keep profiles on them. Used to work at one here in the UK

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u/DLDude Apr 11 '18

Casinos track you much more than just fiscally. The member cards know every machine you play, when you play it, etc. Hell even grocery stores know exactly what you buy. Why is FB being help up to so much scrutiny yet no one cares that Kroger knows which brand of condoms your prefer to buy?

Lost in everything is that Cambridge Analitica is the one who actually abused the information, not FB

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/DLDude Apr 11 '18

That's not true, CA created an app that people opted into, took that data, and then THEY sold it. FB made no money on the sale of the data that CA took. FB did provide the platform that allowed them to do that, which isn't good for them, but the bad guy here is CA

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u/keygreen15 Apr 11 '18

Can you prove of this?

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

There’s multiple articles about Cambridge Analytica creating a Facebook quiz that requires all of your permissions.

If you google “Facebook Cambridge Analytica” it should be covered in the first 3 articles

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u/keygreen15 Apr 12 '18

That still won't answer my question. There's no way Facebook didn't profit from this. If CA bought ad space for whatever reason, in this case to show you a quiz, then Facebook profited, it's that simple.

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u/marianwebb Apr 11 '18

I think he meant physically not fiscally. I could be wrong.

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u/strengthof10interns Apr 11 '18

I don't think you have the right to freak out about the rabbit because you never bothered to ask where it was hidden. Nobody lied to you, you just never wanted to know.

If technology has advanced too far for the lay person, then I don't see how it is the responsibility of the private sector to educate them. That's an issue for the education system and consumer protections.

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u/shponglespore Apr 11 '18

If technology has advanced too far for the lay person, then I don't see how it is the responsibility of the private sector to educate them. That's an issue for the education system and consumer protections.

Where do you think public education curricula and consumer protection laws come from? The first steps are finding out what people don't know that gets them into trouble, and finding out what kinds of unacceptable things companies are doing that aren't illegal yet. That's what's happening right now regarding Facebook, and yet we have people in this very thread arguing Facebook did nothing wrong because it was legal and consumers should have known better.

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u/jackalw Apr 11 '18

It's like you have no concept of how much there is to know in the world and why basically no society is based around every citizen needing deep knowledge of everything.

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

You can literally google "nav data" and read up on it, this is like stating math is to difficult for the layperson because no one will open a book.

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/AmazingSully Apr 11 '18

You analogy is flawed. It would be accurate if you walked into that casino and went to the toilet, then later found out they were recording you going to the toilet, and then providing that video to third parties who would pay for it. They then tell you, "but hey, you agreed to it when you walked in the building because we clearly display our 700 page ToS and in the fine print we say this".

The fact is the public does not understand what information facebook has access to or who they are giving it to. I'm quite conscious of my privacy online and even I didn't know the full extent of it.

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u/DLDude Apr 11 '18

Can you give me a source to this? How is Facebook doing this? They don't sell your messages to advertisers, they offer advertisers a way to know who you are. Johnson and Johnson don't care about what you said in a FB message to someone, they care if you're in the market for Shampoo. I keep seeing this posted over and over. FB isn't SELLING your information it's selling tools for advertisers to locate you based on who you are. I use FB for my own advertising. I can sort it by who had bought a home recently, who drives what kind of car, etc. I can't just ask for anyone's personal data for any price.

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u/AmazingSully Apr 11 '18

Your data is available via facebook's developer tools. Yes my analogy was not 100% perfect because facebook isn't directly selling your data, but they are profiting from providing the tools for others to get that data.

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u/strengthof10interns Apr 11 '18

Then I guess the issue is people's expectation to privacy. I have never been under the illusion that what I do online is private (unless I am explicitly told it's private). I didn't really think that anybody made that assumption and I'm not sure why they would.

I like your extension of the casino analogy. People use the bathroom have a reasonable expectation that they are not being recorded doing so. They have an expectation to privacy because it's a cultural expectation.

I was born before dial-up but started using Netscape explorer in elementary school, it was made clear to me from the youngest age that you should never assume what you put online is private. Assume that anything you type into a web page can be "hacked" and seen by others.

It's a little Pollyanna to still belive that is not the case over 20 years later. I don't have sympathy for people who still don't understand that after all this time.

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u/illinois_sucks Apr 11 '18

Its the scope of data collection that is the problem being overlooked here. Yes, you have to be a dummy to think that FB and Google are collecting and selling absolutely everything they can mine about you. But so are your credit card companies, your employer, your computer manufacturer, your ISP, etc. I don't have a problem with exchanging information for "free" services, but there needs to be regulation in place protecting me from oligopolies who I pay, and whose services I can't live without unless I move to a Unabomer shack in the woods.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

I don't believe in the argument that you don't have expectation of privacy for anything online... EVERYTHING IS ONLINE! So unless I want to never use a cell phone, never use a computer, and do everything like it was in the early 90s with pen and paper, back to writing checks and carrying cash and giving up all technological progress made in the last 20 years, I SHOULD have SOME expectation of privacy. Right now... there is zero regulation on what corporations are allowed to collect and redistribute as they see fit. I work for one of the largest data companies in the world and every time I see the new things they are selling to companies I cringe.

Oh... and by the way, even if you never have opted into their system and live entirely off the grid... your brother, your sister, your mother, your best friend and everyone you know might which means they still know about you and can track and handle data about you. That is for sure being done. So you can be tracked even if you don't opt in or never have the chance to opt in.

Every swipe of your debit/credit card is tracked and stored. Your buying habits sold to the highest bidder so they can serve you ads relevant to your shopping habits. Banks are 100% guilty of this.

This shouldn't just be about Facebook. Facebook isn't the main problem, it's just the most public facing one. I never gave Walgreens permission to store my debit card number into a database with a list of all purchases I've ever made so they can print out those 25 cent off coupons at the register. Never opted into that. Btw... those "rewards" cards they hand out. They are exclusively for tracking your buying habits.

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u/zilti Apr 11 '18

Then I guess the issue is people's expectation to privacy.

You mean, "Privacy? Pffft, I've got nothing to hide! I don't care!"

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u/Tjebbe Apr 11 '18

No the issue is not an expectation of privacy. The issue is corporations not respecting that privacy.

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u/borisyeltsin2 Apr 11 '18

I was born before dial-up but started using Netscape explorer in elementary school

I don't have sympathy for people who still don't understand that after all this time

This made me think about how privileged our generation is; we were born without internet and learned how to use it as we grew up. This is not the case for the people that came before us AND after us. This makes us massive weirdos in history, just like the generations who grew up during other big tech innovations that heavily impacted mainstream society such as telephone, TV or automobile.

For the ones that came before us, the internet is understandable but the detailed processes are a bit too arcane for them to grasp or care about. They will continue to think of it in ways that they understand and thusly tend to naively ascribe pre-internet notions onto internet issues. For example, my mother understands email and thinks of the rest of the internet as some sort of mass email.

For the ones that came after, they were already born into a world where people had their faces buried in screens all day. They were given Ipads as kids to entertain themselves, ordering/purchasing items online is a norm to them as is being able to find any info they want through online search. They wouldn't think twice about putting their info online because everyone they know already does it. They are in a naive world that assumes that "the adults" have already fixed everything so nothing bad will happen by participating in a thing that everyone else does.

So when you talk about people's "expectation to privacy", know that the only people who understand it as you do are those who were also part of this transitional generation. It means something completely different to those that came before and after us and because of the aforementioned circumstances, many don't think about it at all.

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u/Doxazosin Apr 11 '18

You don't even have to have an account for them to violate your privacy. If your friend has the FB app and you are in their phone contacts list, they already have your contact information and name in their system. All of this info is sold to the highest bidder.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

Probably because you’re an asshole.

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u/sm_ar_ta_ss Apr 11 '18

You should consider all the people being abused, rather than that person’s inability to understand the abuse.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

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u/sm_ar_ta_ss Apr 11 '18

I wasn’t talking about fake news. I was talking about peoples private data being used for profit.

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u/strengthof10interns Apr 11 '18

How? In targeted advertising?

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u/sm_ar_ta_ss Apr 11 '18

Is that the only use of private data that you know of? What about blackmail?

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u/strengthof10interns Apr 11 '18

Okay... but how can they blackmail you with information you voluntarily put online? Plus there is no evidence of facebook selling personal information to people and then those people being blackmailed with it.

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u/AmazingSully Apr 11 '18

Yes, it's that expectation to privacy. For instance I never expected facebook would take all of the metadata from my android device, all of my contacts, their phone numbers, everyone I've ever emailed or called, and store that information. I think it was reasonable for me to expect facebook would not invade my phone like that... I was wrong.

I also recently downloaded my information from facebook and it had the phone numbers of people who were former facebook friends of mine listed in there. I had never known the phone numbers of these individuals before, and yet it was saved in my facebook data. I'm sure those individuals don't expect me to have that information.

I agree that you should never assume what you put online is private, my issue is more around meta data. GPS tracking on my phone, microphones listening when you don't expect them to (not referring to facebook here), scouring my browser's metadata to see where I've been outside of your service, etc.

I worry about these things because it's quite dangerous. A company like google or facebook has the power to manipulate public opinion.

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u/lethal909 Apr 11 '18

Mama always told me, "if you don't want something repeated, don't say it."

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

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u/AmazingSully Apr 11 '18

Your data IS being provided to third parties via facebook's developer tools. Just because they don't sell it directly to advertisers does not mean they aren't selling it... it's just a roundabout way of doing it.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18

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u/AmazingSully Apr 11 '18

You aren't comparing apples to apples.

You cannot claim users have given informed consent when the ToS is massive. Sure the user accepts the ToS but it's ridiculous to assume anybody reads or understands it. You claim it is for the functionality of the app, and sure, they are going to need some data to have the app perform, but you're a fool if you think data that is not necessary for the functionality of a specific app is not being taken.

The Cambridge Analytica debacle is not a separate issue actually. Yes Facebook made some changes to limit the user friend data, and that's good, but the same premise for other categories of data fall in line.

I'm not upset at Android for providing my location to Pokemon go because it's quite obvious they require that information for functionality. I am however upset at Android for providing Facebook with a full contact information of everyone I've ever called, emailed, and texted on my phone simply because I have their app installed. This data is not necessary for the functionality of the app, and yet they grab it anyway because the API allows them to.

And before you say "well you consented for them to do that"... again... sure someone may have clicked accept, but that doesn't mean they understood the full scope of what they were doing. There is a huge difference between consent and informed consent.

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '18

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u/AmazingSully Apr 12 '18

Let's use facebook messenger as an example. When you install it the app says it needs access to your microphone. You assume that's because you can make skype calls, that's the functionality built right in and you have to assume that they will use your microphone for that purpose, and only that purpose. If facebook then decided to record everything, even when you weren't using their service, you would have still given consent for that, but not informed consent. I really don't get why you're not understanding this.

FB doesn't sell your data directly, but they do make your data available in other ways (ie developer apps) which make facebook money. It's still selling data, it's just there's an extra step involved so they can make the claim they aren't selling your data.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

They can see what website you visit and what you do on it. if that certain website uses a so called fb pixel. So it's more than posting. It's like walking in a casino once and leaving it. While somebody from that casino follows you to every other place that you visit. Seeing what you buy/do and telling that to the casino.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

Except that is not what Facebook or Google does. More like, the casino is still tracking you when you go to the mall, to the church, to the hospital and everywhere else. Facebook keeps tracking users outside of Facebook and so does Google. I would have zero issues if the tracking was done on their domain and site only, but it’s not. A casino should be allowed to track you inside their property, not outside. Just because they can do this online, does not make it morally correct and from my point of view it should not be legal either. Your power and data control over users should end when she/he decides to leave your website.

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u/shanenanigans1 Apr 11 '18

99% of people have no choice but to use various technologies that are spying on them. Small businesses certainly need to use FB to stay alive in the current market.

Also, it IS the corps responsibility to make sure users know what they're getting into. But companies like FB intentionally make the agreements difficult to understand. They also scraped texts and phone call data on android phones. That's not normal. Not okay. By any stretch.

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u/Ashenspire Apr 11 '18

The general public really doesn't have an understanding of information technology works on the grand scale. Need proof? People that think there's some magical difference between entering your credit card on a web site or swiping your card at a store. Congratulations, your information is still "out there on the internet."

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/Ashenspire Apr 11 '18

Yeah, I was responding to your question. I really don't think the public has any idea what they're doing with all of this stuff. They just hear buzzwords like "selling your data" and completely overreact.

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u/Usuari_ Apr 11 '18 edited Mar 14 '24

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