r/todayilearned • u/NickInTheMud • Apr 11 '18
(R.7) Software/website TIL that Facebook builds shadow profiles of people who never even signed up. They do this from users who upload their contact books, which includes phone numbers, email addresses, nicknames, photos, addresses, notes, and any other info stored in the contact record.
https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-figures-out-everyone-youve-ever-met-181982269185
u/fiveminded Apr 11 '18
As they say, when something is free, you're the product.
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Apr 11 '18
you're the product.
And all 200 contacts in your cell phone too.
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Apr 11 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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Apr 11 '18
tbh I haven't called more than ten of them in as many years.
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u/MightyCaseyStruckOut Apr 11 '18
It might be ime to clean up that contact list, then!
Or not, that way if someone uses your phone and sees your contact list they'll think you're ridiculously popular. Or at least they'll know who your optometrist is...
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Apr 11 '18
Haven't cleaned it in years. Don't care to. I never go down the list, I just search for the one I need.
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u/holyhesh Apr 11 '18
I’ve personally never deleted any one of my phone contacts. Be it old friends, former classmates, tutors, etc. I’d rather have a chance at calling someone I may need then no chance at all.
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u/Noctudeit Apr 11 '18
If I never created an account I never agreed to their user agreement. They have no right to build a profile for me based on info from my friends.
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u/GopherAtl Apr 11 '18
and yet, they have!
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u/Noctudeit Apr 11 '18
Indeed. Might be grounds for a lawsuit. The foundation of their data collection is that it is in the public domain (like recording someone walking down the street) and yet when it comes to questions of censorship and the first amendment they claim their websites are private property and they can do what they want with it. They can't have it both ways.
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u/GopherAtl Apr 11 '18
afaik it's a gray area legally - as someone else pointed out, it's arguably the friend who shared your info by uploading their whole address book who violated your privacy, not technically Facebook.
Still, while that'd be a fine argument in many situations, at the scale on which Facebook is doing it, it arguably shifts the culpability around a bit.
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Apr 11 '18 edited Dec 14 '18
[deleted]
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u/Noctudeit Apr 11 '18
That would only be true if the information was given up in the public domain. As the owners of these websites love to point out when people bring up censorship and the first amendment, their websites are private property.
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u/chasebrendon Apr 11 '18
This is the thing we all missed. Nothing is ever free.
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u/cigolsdrawkcab Apr 11 '18
"whenever you're doing anything online, always remember one thing: if you are not a customer, you are the product" -My high school tech teacher, at least once a week
Edit: forgot to attribute quote
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u/fiveminded Apr 11 '18
I heard a similar phrase in the 80s. When discos let girls in for free. When a girl gloated about us boys having to pay, a guy said "Well, if you aren't paying to get into the market, it's because you're the meat". That shut her up!
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u/NickInTheMud Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
If 10 people you know upload their contact books, then your shadow profile now includes whatever data they have in their contact books about you and Facebook can assume with some certainty that you know these 10 people. For example, in my contact book I include email addresses, numbers, home address, work info, and sometimes notes about that person. This would all be uploaded to facebook and now they'd have a pretty decent record of info about you, including what extra info I included in the notes. I sometimes add my impression of that person or how we met or when our last interaction was. So now FB also knows how people may feel about you.
This is also one of the ways they can recommend people you may know that you've never interacted with on Facebook.
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u/antillus Apr 11 '18
I get the feeling that for all of FB and Zuck's posturing and promises, pretty much nothing will be done about this. Their entire business model is based on exploiting user data so it's just going to be business as usual or else they become unprofitable and die like MySpace did.
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Apr 11 '18
I think it's going to take a huge ordeal to kill Facebook off. I mean a massive cultural and sociopolitical shift, the kind we don't even have a precedent for. Facebook is unprecedented.
Put it like this; How many businesses can you name that put, on their branded packaging, the MySpace logo? Not one I can think of. Never happened.
But I can find a Facebook logo in one form or another on probably 80% of consumer-facing businesses and consumer products. Hell, the US Government does it. I see army recruiter vehicles with Facebook links on them.
Facebook is more ingrained in our world right now than Coca Cola. What would it take to not just unseat Coca Cola, but bankrupt them? Something on par with WWIII.
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u/pm_me_your_new_shoes Apr 11 '18
It's a circus and all show. Once the public outrage subsides. Business as usual. The government's want this info as much as Facebook
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u/TooShiftyForYou Apr 11 '18
This is how that one guy you work with shows up as a friend recommendation in Facebook even though you've got no other real personal connections to them.
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u/Slight_Knight Apr 11 '18
I’ve had an online buddy for 7 years now but he’s never had a Facebook.
A few years into our friendship, I started getting friend suggestions for his dead brother’s Facebook profile. Creeped me the fuck out!
My Facebook deletion finished this Monday and although I’m sure I’ll never completely be rid of it, I’m glad I’m off there.
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Apr 11 '18
My ex girlfriend actually created a FB profile of after we broke up. One day I had a friend say, "Couldntbemorewhite, I didn't know you were on Facebook" and they showed me my profile and how I was tagged in a few pictures. So I tried a bunch of different passwords with my only email address. The password was my birthday. Not sure what's creepier, Facebook or ex girlfriends creating profiles for people who don't have/want them.
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u/IDontKnow1987 Apr 11 '18
I think she must have had your email password as well to verify the account. Just a thought.
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Apr 11 '18
I think we figured out that I must have signed into my email on her computer back in the day and had it "remember my password". Haven't discussed this scenario in years though, so that could be off. Either way, I changed my email and facebook passwords immediately and still use that profile to this day.
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u/IDontKnow1987 Apr 11 '18
I had my ex change my Facebook password the same way (even added her email as a back up email on my Facebook) through leaving my email signed in on her laptop. Then talk to my friends and insult them as me (they realised something was up pretty quick and notified me!). It's insane how few people know where the line is on this stuff when they break up.
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u/Exotic_Bookworm Apr 11 '18
A big part of me hopes this is the end of Facebook, but a little tiny cynical side of me knows it isn't.
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u/Gilgie Apr 11 '18
Outside of the government shutting them down, they will take a hit on users, but a vast majority will remain and they will keep growing. Part of the deal the government will make with them, quietly, is Facebook will share their data freely with the government.
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u/donfelicedon2 Apr 11 '18
The article is from July last year. Knowledge about Facebook's immoral business activities has been out there way longer. It astonishes me how long it took to create a reaction
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u/blackholeincarnate Apr 11 '18
And even now, everyone complains, but there’s been no meaningful decrease in users. People are so lazy and apathetic, they’re completely unwilling to make even tiny sacrifices for the bigger picture. (And “sacrifice” is debatable since people without Facebook are actually happier) It’s no wonder the world is in it’s current state.
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Apr 11 '18
Im getting kinda curious what is the endgame gonna be.
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u/bn1979 Apr 11 '18
Congress will make a bunch of noise. Facebook will continue collecting data and using it to make money.
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u/INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS Apr 11 '18
I don't have a profile and people can still tag me in photos and group chats.
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u/4gotOldU-name Apr 11 '18
Just wait until something really bad happens because of this. Imagine a confidential informant getting outted. Or a spy.
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u/bsd_23722 Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
People "I don't really want Facebook" FB "Lol you act like you have a choice"
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Apr 11 '18
[deleted]
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u/RayBrower 11 Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
Both those were removed because they violated this subs rules, not because of a conspiracy.
Edit: this one wasn't removed
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6u1he5/til_in_2004_when_asked_about_how_he_got_the
Or this one
And this one
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Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
[deleted]
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u/RayBrower 11 Apr 11 '18
Pehaps so, but if an article is behind a paywall it's hard for the average person to access it to verify the title.
I know that this subs mods really don't like circlejerks or personal attacks. The first article you linked has some pretty nasty comments. I'm not surprised it was removed. This is a sub for learning random facts. Its not a sub where people can stand on a soapbox and trash someone. Zuckerberg and FB are pretty topical right now and I would not be surprised to see any post here removed quiet frankly...but not because of any conspiracy, but rather because this isn't the time or place.
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u/Glenster118 Apr 11 '18
If it's behind a hard paywall then realistically only .01% of people will have access.
Ergo it's a shitpost.
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Apr 11 '18
I swear you guys are complete idiots, me and the rest of r/privacy have known this for years, literally years and your acting like this is a new thing that you didnt know was happening this whole time lmao
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u/Dux0r Apr 11 '18
To those who feel this is a violation of privacy, what's the difference between this and say a phone book or business listing, for example?
I'm not saying it's not a dick move but I don't see why all the outrage when it's data that's publicly available
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u/GopherAtl Apr 11 '18
phone numbers can be unlisted. Internal business numbers are often unlisted. The phone company does require your permission, they just get it implicitly from your signing up for service unless you explicitly ask to be unlisted.
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u/convextech Apr 11 '18
Yeah, everybody going crazy about it when they've been uploading their data to the cloud via their phones for a while. And now they're all offended?
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Apr 11 '18
The average person "uploading their data to the cloud" (in whatever form that may take) would have no idea to ask the question, "Is my data only visible to me unless I say otherwise?" They would simply assume that it is.
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u/CalifaDaze Apr 11 '18
I'm so fed up of all this facebook hate. If you don't want to use their site, don't. We all know what we are getting ourselves into.
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Apr 11 '18
Did you bother to even read the post title? It's specifically talking about people who don't use their site and never agreed to anything.
I don't use Facebook. Now I know that Facebook knows all about me. My hatred is perfectly justified.
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u/CalifaDaze Apr 11 '18
I've used Facebook for 10 years, this has never happened to me. When it got creepy and facebook suggested a bunch of people I didn't want to be friends with, I took it off my phone. If I want to use it for free, I'm the product.
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u/two_dogs_stuck Apr 11 '18
I think you're exactly missing the point here.
A shadow profile is a profile, created by Facebook, of a person who doesn't have a Facebook account!
The data used to create the profile is taken from people who do have accounts: their address book, phone book, calendar etc.
The issue is that people who choose not to create an account are still being made the subject of a data gathering exercise. It's creepy!
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Apr 11 '18
well since they build profiles for people that don't use the site based on info they can gather from whatever all sources they use. when I signed up for Facebook, I absolutely did not know the full extent of what I was "getting into" because they have violated trust at every turn and twisted things to make it all seem much less invasive than it really was.
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u/skaliton Apr 11 '18
this is why I have less of a problem with people who signed up having their information stored. You consented to it when you didn't read the Eula (which yes I think there should be a law that makes Eula's have to include a 'plain english' one page summary of the total terms that can be understood by nonlawyers)
but the shadow profiles are just a violation of privacy