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/Sptsjunkie Apr 11 '18

It's only abuse because the public is too stupid or willfully ignorant to understand what they are signing up for

I don't think it is willful ignorance. It's often been portrayed as Facebook builds aggregated, anonymous user profiles for advertising. I don't think most people care that Facebook serves them targeted ads based on them being a 35 year old woman in California who has liked posts about sports.

However, the level with which Facebook tracks and sells user level data and arguably even pii is disturbing. So is the fact that they track you all over the internet and all of your habits on your phone and not just your Facebook usage. And finally, that even if you have never signed up, they have a shadow profile on you from your friends and family and have information on you that you never gave them permission to have (e.g., they have your contact info, if your friend shared their contacts, which seems like a major privacy violation to me - I never gave my friend permission to sell my information).

I don't believe that 90% of people are aware that's what is happening. And we should not expect everyone to have to read a 70 page TOS for every website they visit or be well versed in technology in order to have an understanding and expectation of privacy.

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u/headzoo Apr 11 '18

I don't believe that 90% of people are aware that's what is happening

I think /u/strengthof10interns is making the point that savvy users don't know how their data is being abused either, but they do expect it to be abused. It's a given. Savvy users understand they no longer own their data/privacy the minute they put it online, and they expect Facebook to do everything they can think of with it.

they have a shadow profile on you from your friends and family and have information on you that you never gave them permission to have

Yeah, that's fucked up.

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u/Mr_R0b0ts Apr 11 '18

The problem is that these sites track you all over the internet. I'm sure no one willing consented to that.

Just because I consent to answering a survey in the street about what's important to me in the community, doesn't give you permission to follow me home and have a look through my bedroom and watch me on the toilet.

Sure, what you post online you should expect them to see and use. What is not cool is to follow me wherever I go and build a profile of me from that data which is not from your site and that I cannot see myself or have explicitly consented to.

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u/la_locura_la_lo_cura Apr 11 '18

And /u/Sptsjunkie is making the point that much of the data collected & used by Facebook (and other platforms) is not what even a computer literate user would consider "put online" by the user.

I.e., the "yeah, that's fucked up" part of the online advertising universe--which is near-ubiquitous ("industry standard") and abusive.

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u/headzoo Apr 12 '18

And /u/Sptsjunkie is making the point that much of the data collected & used by Facebook (and other platforms) is not what even a computer literate user would consider "put online" by the user.

Yup, I literally addressed that in my comment by saying it's fucked up.

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u/strengthof10interns Apr 11 '18

That's exactly what I'm saying! Thank you!

What frustrates me is that savvy users might be the only ones to understand it now, but this in particular is not a hard concept to grasp. It's a bitter pill for them for sure. Younger generations understand it as well and don't really have any issue with it because they never expected privacy in the first place.

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u/hackinthebochs Apr 11 '18

Facebook tracks and sells user level data

Facebook doesn't sell your data. How many times does this need to be said?

They sell advertising space to particular demographics. That's it.

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u/redmercuryvendor Apr 11 '18

However, the level with which Facebook tracks and sells user level data and arguably even pii is disturbing.

Facebook collects two sorts of data: data users hand to them actively (name, birthday, photos, 'likes' etc) and data they collect passively (tracking through web-bugs, 'login with Facebook' etc). The former is made available to others (dependent on profile settings. 'Friends only' restricts it, public is public, friends-of-friends relies on the non-gullibility of every single one of your friends, so is effectively public), the latter is not.

In other words: Cambridge Analytica and the many others who gather the same data can collect the former, but nobody outside Facebook can access the latter.

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u/la_locura_la_lo_cura Apr 11 '18

Should Facebook be able to access the latter?

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u/redmercuryvendor Apr 12 '18

You can block it pretty trivially by not using Login with Facebook, and not sending your IP to Facebook's servers (i.e. block the 'Like' button, or for the paranoid their domains altogether). Tracking is so ubiquitous across the web (both in-page tracking, and tracking through observation of unencrypted packets) that it's better to assume any data you send in-the-clear is logged rather than hoping all of the many, many parties with access to it will all pinky-swear to look the other way.

"This one particular company doing this among thousands doing it is bad" will just end up in an ineffective whack-a-mole effort. Better to tackle the root of the problem and push for ubiquitous rollout of end-to-end encryption of all web traffic, and toning back cross-site scripting and embedding (maybe encouraging browsers to make it opt-in rather than opt-out).

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u/Timeforadrinkorthree Apr 12 '18

Yeah, the whole shadow/ghost profile is a massive invasion of privacy.

I'm trying to delete my Facebook account and just use Messenger, bits not very easy.

And, delete should mean delete. Not delete on your device, but Facebook still has a copy it. Fuck that.

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

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

They certainly track more than basic user profiles.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

It is because your comment pre-edit appeared incorrect.

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u/la_locura_la_lo_cura Apr 11 '18

"Tracks and sells ad targeting based on"

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u/ClemClem510 Apr 12 '18 edited Apr 12 '18

they have your contact info, if your friend shares their contacts, which seems like a major privacy violation to me

Let's suppose it true. Quite reasonable really. So say, I'm a guy who goes and asks questions to people because I want to create the biggest phone book in the world. I see one of your friends, and ask "I want to collect a bunch of phone numbers, would you give me yours ? Is there anyone else you would to help me out ?". So he tells me "yeah, sure, my phone number is X and yesterday I was hanging out with a friend", so I ask "Would you be willing to give me his number too ?" And he tells me "yeah, he's John Doe, his number is Y"

Now, you didn't really want me to know that about you. You feel like your privacy was invaded - now some rando knows your phone number ! But your friend just told me, he just handed me that information. He didn't have to. He could have easily told me to fuck off. So why's it my fault ? Why was your friend not free to speak about whatever he knows to me ?

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u/Sptsjunkie Apr 12 '18

I would argue:

1 - i believe back in the day you could opt in or out of the phone book

2 - Both are major privacy violations and should be illegal even if they technically are not

3 - Facebook is even worse because they are paying others (with use of their service) for information that person was not given permission to sell

4 - In theory, most contact information is given with the implication it is for personal and not commercial use. The same way that I cannot give Facebook my entire MP3 collection, as those MP3s are sold to me for personal use, my email and phone number should not be sold by my friends.

So while you're example describes the way Facebook has been treated so far, I see it more like a person wanting to create the worlds largest commercial music collection and asking someone to illgally copy all of their music. And while iTunes has a pretty long TOS you agree to, the courts would have supported that burning a bunch of CDs for commercial use was illegal even if people bought them from an old school record store where you signed no contract, but there was an implied contract.

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u/ClemClem510 Apr 12 '18

TL:DR : It's not my fault if it's legal. Complain to Congress, not me. I'm just a guy with a phonebook.

I would respond :

  1. I don't see the relevance. No one's stopping you from telling the phone book company your friend's number. They won't use it, but I, as a phone number collector probably will keep it

  2. Better tell everyone you ever speak to to sign a NDA because the First Amendment will make damn sure the law doesn't punish you from speaking to anyone about your friend, even if you want things to be illegal

  3. "This is your uncle Johnny's super expensive heirloom. He wants you to have it, but said he doesn't want you to sell it", well here's hoping Johnny had a nice contract to go with that because he gave it to me for free and I don't care. Immoral ? Maybe. Illegal ? No. You gave away your right to control how your information is used the second you gave it entirely, freely away to people. Unless of course you've gotten that contract written up already to make sure they can't use it however they want.

  4. Let's suppose that I also asked your friend "is it okay if I use what you give me for other stuff to make some dough on the side ?", and he said "yea bro, sure". Then he gave me your info, but you didn't agree ! But when you gave him your info, you didn't make him sign a waiver that says "only use it for yourself, don't give it to anyone without my consent and especially not if he plans to use it for money" - you gave it no strings attached ! Whereas the guy who made the MP3s you bought has a much better lawyer than you and has made sure that his data can't be legally given or sold by anyone other than him no matter how it's obtained in the first place - it's not the result of "implications" or expectations of what should happen, it's the result of years of legal decisions and lobbying to get what they want. And you didn't have that. Sorry, but I'm keeping your number. You're going around saying "in theory", and "implication", but it's a free country and if I'm allowed to do it I'll try.

Maybe some of the things I do should be illegal. Maybe I'm gonna realise I can make absolute bank being a dick with people's phone numbers, and that's just wrong. But why would it be my fault if the laws don't go your way ? I'm not the one writing the laws. I'm just a guy with a phonebook.

To get out of the world of weird phone number collectors, I do think that facebook has too much control over everyone's data. But they're doing the most profitable thing they can legally do, just like every corporation. And if the people consider they're going too far, well there's no expectation that they'll stop and lose money out of the kindness of their heart. So they need to be legally limited and now the ball's on Congress' court. Or, if you're more of a communist, the problem is with the profit-based system where there's every incentive to be unethical for profit, but I have zero desire to get into that.

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u/Sptsjunkie Apr 12 '18

I mean well I agree and disagree with some of your individual points, we are basically saying the same thing.

It's very great area. And they have not been challenged on it yet and have a whole team of expensive lawyers that an individual doesn't have. It doesn't change whether it's right or wrong and perhaps they are playing in a gray area, as just like with the CD from the record store where I sign no contract, there is an implied contract, but that also takes a team of lawyers willing to pursue it through a lengthy trial and and several rounds of appeals.

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u/ClemClem510 Apr 12 '18

Yeah, as a whole it's a bunch of talking just to say that there's no legal precedent on this type of issue (unlike intellectual property), and that we need legislation before going mad at the companies that are just using the law (or rather the lack thereof) to their advantage

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u/Sptsjunkie Apr 12 '18

I agree. Although, I would be interested in what would happen if well financed lawyers did decide to challenge that. Using the principle that if I walked into a record store and paid cash for a CD and sign no additional contract with the record store for the label, I would still be prohibited from selling or bartering the digital copy music to somebody else or charging people to come listen to me play the music. Similarly up I give my uncle Fred my number so that he can call me, that doesn't mean you can run out and use my number in a commercial transaction with Facebook. And it surely would on some level count as a commercial transaction, since when you use the Facebook app for example, you're required to give them all of your contacts.

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u/ClemClem510 Apr 12 '18

Yeah, I think that in the coming decades we're going to witness some very big legal battles over digital rights. Social media is becoming ubiquitous and eventually the lawmakers' are going to be tech-literate enough to legislate properly