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This is an incredibly ugly dark pattern. The 'share information with Facebook' nugget is hidden behind a toggle at the bottom of the screen, and will be guaran

This is an incredibly ugly dark pattern. The 'share information with Facebook' nugget is hidden behind a toggle at the bottom of the screen, and will be guaranteed to be missed by the 99% of users who just want to talk to their friends. Then, once you've agreed to the terms and conditions, you've got a completely arbitrary 30 days to read an online article which tells you what you've signed up for before WhatsApp is irrevocably sharing your data with Facebook. You can build an incredibly accurate picture of people's lives from metadata alone - WhatsApp know it and Facebook know it. Not only that - when WhatsApp start building out these 'brand' relationships which will look a lot like helpful information at first - you'll be loading your data into that brand's custom FB audience too. And you won't have an opt out because, y'know, reasons. This is very obviously not the WhatsApp that promised not to fuck with its users when Facebook bought it out.

0xmohit 10y ago
Most don't like hearing this: if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use these "social media" tools. I suspect that you'd be familiar with LinkedIn dark patterns [0] too. [0] https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae726fe1462 https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae...
- kristianc 10y ago
  It's not that simple. There are many many ways that your information can end up being referenced in an identity graph and be discoverable by Facebook that don't involve signing up for Facebook at all. It's more - don't sign into a public wifi network, don't hand over your email address at a checkout, don't sign up for a store card.. oh, and don't sign up for Facebook either. Not just that, but even if your number is not shared with Facebook, but Facebook knows that ten of your friends all contact you three times a week, you're still in the graph even if you're not personally receiving advertising.
  - ffggvv 10y ago
    That practice can be fought more easily in courts. Also the more user deleting they're accounts the less "friends" you have that share your number with facebook.
  - 0xmohit 10y ago
    > There are many many ways that your information can end up being referenced in an identity graph and be discoverable by Facebook Of course, it's not simple. Additional measure might include using browser extensions like Ghostery, uBlock origin. I know people find it hard to do, but avoid using Google search. Use Duckduckgo instead. Block ads. Some sites refuse to load up for that reason. I'm ok giving those a pass :)
    - jhobag 10y ago
      iirc duckduckgo isn't the best. disconnect is better
- geofft 10y ago
  That's like saying "If you don't want to eat horse meat, don't eat fast food." Your solution works, but it's entirely reasonable for a consumer to want to get the positive parts of a good or service (even a good or service you don't like) without the negative parts. Market pressure and regulation are both good ways to make it happen.
  - ffggvv 10y ago
    In this case, market pressure derives from users deleting their accounts. For a long time people where saying that ads/tracking is good because nobody is willing to pay for software/service/social media. Well users were paying for whatsapp. There was no need to sell it to facebook, nor there was a need for facebook to use these dark patterns with whatsapp. Regulation should be an exception. Free markets work pretty well in practice.
    - 0xmohit 10y ago
      > nor there was a need for facebook to use these dark patterns with whatsapp Facebook needs to recover it's investment in WhatsApp. No?
- treebeard901 10y ago
  "Don't use these tools if you value privacy" is not that far off from "If you have nothing to hide, why are you afraid of surveillance?" An observed life is not a free life. Many people have to use social media to communicate with family, work associates, etc... In many cases, facebook messaging has replaced methods of communication that did not rely on the content or metadata of messages for profit. All that really matters is if this was legit and FB assumed people would have no problem with it then they would not have hidden it.
  - ed312 10y ago
    Is email not sufficient to communicate with family, work associates, etc.?
    - derekp7 10y ago
      I've thought about building something that gives a social network type experience that is built on top of email. Any status update would get sent out to an email list of your connections, and all the emails could be put in a specific mail folder using standard rules. A front end app would then scan that folder and give you a personalized page that represents the latest status based on what it sees in that folder. The raw messages themselves may contain various control messages (such as "friend requests" and "drop requests", but otherwise can be directly viewable too. But the main interface would be from a front-end app that runs on the user's PC or mobile device.
      - gavinpc 10y ago
        I love this idea (if only for the motivation behind it). How would your "normal" mail client filter out the messages that are for this app? People have lots of different mail clients which they might not be able (or willing) to configure. Or would you expect a dedicated address.
        softawre 10y ago
        The problem, of course, is who builds/maintains this, how do they get paid, and how do you pay the server fees.
- caseysoftware 10y ago
  That doesn't work because it's not just what you share with the social networks but what others share about you and how they're able to link those little facts to create a full picture. (Or what the social networks collect on you from other places.) Facebook had a leak ~3 years ago that showed it: http://www.zdnet.com/article/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-shadow-profiles-leak-in-bug/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-sh... but there have been darker efforts to do this since at least 2006 or so that I've found.
- CodeMage 10y ago
  There's a reason most people don't like hearing that: it's not a solution. I could try to explain, but Moxie Marlinspike did it a lot better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk
- huskyr 10y ago
  This argument is become less and less valid as social media accounts become more and more indispensable for leading a normal modern life. Sure, you can still e-mail, call, sms or heck, even visit your friends and family IRL. But not having a social media account sure makes it more inconvenient. All your friends use these networks. In a couple of years not having a social media account will be seen as equivalent to not having a bank account, or a passport, or a phone number. Sure, it's possible to live like that. But it sure is inconvenient. Aside from that, as others have mentioned in this thread, even if you don't have an account Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc. have your data already. You can be sure one of your friends has uploaded their contacts to WhatsApp, including your phone number and mail address. Facebook has detected your face in a photograph your cousin uploaded. Google has all of your self-hosted mails because all of your friends use Gmail. If you don't want your personal information to be shared, you need to live like a hermit.
  - killbrad 10y ago
    I'd argue it's more meaningful, not more cumbersome. Do you only exclusively communicate with people via Facebook today?
- igivanov 10y ago
  Huh? I don't use facebook, and yet it knows about me because I am in other people's contacts and some of those people had to share their contacts with facebook. Fuck facebook a thousand times over.
- pjc50 10y ago
  It's not enough to not use these tools, it becomes a requirement not to share your personal information with any VC-backed startup in case it's sold in the future. Which is a ridiculous standard to hold users to.
- joering2 10y ago
  > if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use these "social media" tools. Since Faceook is using cookies and is able to read your data from other websites than FB alone, can you please fix your sentence to read this: > if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use internet. period.
  - Moru 10y ago
    There are very simple blockers that can block all Facebook cookies on other homepages. uBlock for example has the option to remove all social media icons and that includes the tracking cookies.
- taneq 10y ago
  I just found another one (while trying my 'free trial' of LinkedIn Premium): * You have to enter a credit card number to begin the 'free trial', for a 'seamless experience' (ie. so we can bill you if you forget to cancel). * You have to cancel your free trial 1 day or more before the end of the trial period to avoid being billed for the next month (at least I hope it's "1 day or more" and not "exactly 1 day"... the exact wording is "If you wish to avoid being charged for your free trial, you must cancel the trial one day prior to the auto-renewal.") * You can't then delete your payment method at the same time, and must remember to do so after the end of the billing cycle.
oliv__ 10y ago
> WhatsApp know it and Facebook know it. The NSA knows it too
SixSigma 10y ago
> You can build an incredibly accurate picture of people's lives from metadata Or as former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency., Gen. Michael Hayden, said : "We kill people based on metadata" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc
kuschku 10y ago
Making this an opt-in is automatically illegal in the EU anyway, which makes the fact that they rolled it out like this very surprising.
- king_phil 10y ago
  Someone has to sue them, now. And it costs a huge sum of money, like 10k+€.
krisa 10y ago
When you will try to actualy delete your fb account (at least when i did it some time ago). Its a minefield of dark patterns. First you need special link, because you can only deactivate from settings. Then you will have to go through pile of emotionaly draining photos of friends with claims that they will mis you and you wont be able to see what they are doing with their lives. Then few traps with agreeing about deletion with switched meanings of buttons. In the end you wont actualy be deleted. You will be put to deactivate mode for 14 days, if your browser accidentaly auto logins then you have to do it again. After 14 days you are sent email and if you miss it and wont acept it in certain time - you wont be deleted. Of course since 1. 1. 2014 it realy doesnt matter because facebook keeps your data even if you delete account. (i deleted it just before 1. 1. 2014 and i still think they kept all the shit, because how would anyone know).
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  I deactivate all the time. Hit "I don't find Facebook useful.", and its just two click away from deactivation.
  - soared 10y ago
    > I accomplish nothing all the time. Hit "I don't find Facebook useful.", and its just two click away from feeling like you deactivated.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  I've heard that rather than deleting your FB account, it's better to turn it into a piece of obviously-fictitious performance art. Don't try to remove your data from the Internet (which is futile; you know Facebook still has it on some archive somewhere anyway). Instead, replace it with nonsense. Set your interests to your competitors so that you get notifications everytime they release a new feature, and full information about their advertising campaigns. De-friend your actual friends, and friend random celebrities. Make your political views insane. Post status updates generated by Markov-chain or recursive neural net; if you're feeling particularly bold, you could try to reverse-engineer the weights on Facebook's classifiers by generating data and seeing what sort of ads you get. Chances are, doing this will get you kicked off Facebook and deleted pretty quickly. And if it doesn't, you've just fucked with not just Facebook, but all their advertisers. GIGO.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
It's right next to the sign saying "Beware of the leopard". How could you miss that?
vithlani 10y ago
Sorry, having a hard time getting this. From: https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/26000016 https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/26000016 >You will see a control at the bottom of the screen. If you do not want your account information shared with Facebook to improve your Facebook ads and products experiences, you can uncheck the box or toggle the control Where is all the: "...before WhatsApp is irrevocably sharing your data with Facebook." From the page, I understand that my data won't be shared except to other FB companies for stated purposes (marketing and Ads not being one of those).
calgoo 10y ago
Happened to me this morning, needed to check a whatsapp message, some stupid new terms update so i just hit ok so i can access my account.
thewhitetulip 10y ago
>This is very obviously not the WhatsApp that promised not to fuck with its users when Facebook bought it out. Exactly my point, when whatsapp was bought, they said all these things, that whatsapp doesn't sell out customer information, that whatsapp will never have calling facility because they want to focus on texting alone. I think they should remove the "why we do not sell ads" too, there is no point in this two faced behaviour.

0xmohit 10y ago

Most don't like hearing this: if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use these "social media" tools. I suspect that you'd be familiar with LinkedIn dark patterns [0] too. [0] https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae726fe1462 https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae...

kristianc 10y ago
It's not that simple. There are many many ways that your information can end up being referenced in an identity graph and be discoverable by Facebook that don't involve signing up for Facebook at all. It's more - don't sign into a public wifi network, don't hand over your email address at a checkout, don't sign up for a store card.. oh, and don't sign up for Facebook either. Not just that, but even if your number is not shared with Facebook, but Facebook knows that ten of your friends all contact you three times a week, you're still in the graph even if you're not personally receiving advertising.
- ffggvv 10y ago
  That practice can be fought more easily in courts. Also the more user deleting they're accounts the less "friends" you have that share your number with facebook.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  > There are many many ways that your information can end up being referenced in an identity graph and be discoverable by Facebook Of course, it's not simple. Additional measure might include using browser extensions like Ghostery, uBlock origin. I know people find it hard to do, but avoid using Google search. Use Duckduckgo instead. Block ads. Some sites refuse to load up for that reason. I'm ok giving those a pass :)
  - jhobag 10y ago
    iirc duckduckgo isn't the best. disconnect is better
geofft 10y ago
That's like saying "If you don't want to eat horse meat, don't eat fast food." Your solution works, but it's entirely reasonable for a consumer to want to get the positive parts of a good or service (even a good or service you don't like) without the negative parts. Market pressure and regulation are both good ways to make it happen.
- ffggvv 10y ago
  In this case, market pressure derives from users deleting their accounts. For a long time people where saying that ads/tracking is good because nobody is willing to pay for software/service/social media. Well users were paying for whatsapp. There was no need to sell it to facebook, nor there was a need for facebook to use these dark patterns with whatsapp. Regulation should be an exception. Free markets work pretty well in practice.
  - 0xmohit 10y ago
    > nor there was a need for facebook to use these dark patterns with whatsapp Facebook needs to recover it's investment in WhatsApp. No?
treebeard901 10y ago
"Don't use these tools if you value privacy" is not that far off from "If you have nothing to hide, why are you afraid of surveillance?" An observed life is not a free life. Many people have to use social media to communicate with family, work associates, etc... In many cases, facebook messaging has replaced methods of communication that did not rely on the content or metadata of messages for profit. All that really matters is if this was legit and FB assumed people would have no problem with it then they would not have hidden it.
- ed312 10y ago
  Is email not sufficient to communicate with family, work associates, etc.?
  - derekp7 10y ago
    I've thought about building something that gives a social network type experience that is built on top of email. Any status update would get sent out to an email list of your connections, and all the emails could be put in a specific mail folder using standard rules. A front end app would then scan that folder and give you a personalized page that represents the latest status based on what it sees in that folder. The raw messages themselves may contain various control messages (such as "friend requests" and "drop requests", but otherwise can be directly viewable too. But the main interface would be from a front-end app that runs on the user's PC or mobile device.
    - gavinpc 10y ago
      I love this idea (if only for the motivation behind it). How would your "normal" mail client filter out the messages that are for this app? People have lots of different mail clients which they might not be able (or willing) to configure. Or would you expect a dedicated address.
      - softawre 10y ago
        The problem, of course, is who builds/maintains this, how do they get paid, and how do you pay the server fees.
caseysoftware 10y ago
That doesn't work because it's not just what you share with the social networks but what others share about you and how they're able to link those little facts to create a full picture. (Or what the social networks collect on you from other places.) Facebook had a leak ~3 years ago that showed it: http://www.zdnet.com/article/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-shadow-profiles-leak-in-bug/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-sh... but there have been darker efforts to do this since at least 2006 or so that I've found.
CodeMage 10y ago
There's a reason most people don't like hearing that: it's not a solution. I could try to explain, but Moxie Marlinspike did it a lot better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk
huskyr 10y ago
This argument is become less and less valid as social media accounts become more and more indispensable for leading a normal modern life. Sure, you can still e-mail, call, sms or heck, even visit your friends and family IRL. But not having a social media account sure makes it more inconvenient. All your friends use these networks. In a couple of years not having a social media account will be seen as equivalent to not having a bank account, or a passport, or a phone number. Sure, it's possible to live like that. But it sure is inconvenient. Aside from that, as others have mentioned in this thread, even if you don't have an account Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc. have your data already. You can be sure one of your friends has uploaded their contacts to WhatsApp, including your phone number and mail address. Facebook has detected your face in a photograph your cousin uploaded. Google has all of your self-hosted mails because all of your friends use Gmail. If you don't want your personal information to be shared, you need to live like a hermit.
- killbrad 10y ago
  I'd argue it's more meaningful, not more cumbersome. Do you only exclusively communicate with people via Facebook today?
igivanov 10y ago
Huh? I don't use facebook, and yet it knows about me because I am in other people's contacts and some of those people had to share their contacts with facebook. Fuck facebook a thousand times over.
pjc50 10y ago
It's not enough to not use these tools, it becomes a requirement not to share your personal information with any VC-backed startup in case it's sold in the future. Which is a ridiculous standard to hold users to.
joering2 10y ago
> if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use these "social media" tools. Since Faceook is using cookies and is able to read your data from other websites than FB alone, can you please fix your sentence to read this: > if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use internet. period.
- Moru 10y ago
  There are very simple blockers that can block all Facebook cookies on other homepages. uBlock for example has the option to remove all social media icons and that includes the tracking cookies.
taneq 10y ago
I just found another one (while trying my 'free trial' of LinkedIn Premium): * You have to enter a credit card number to begin the 'free trial', for a 'seamless experience' (ie. so we can bill you if you forget to cancel). * You have to cancel your free trial 1 day or more before the end of the trial period to avoid being billed for the next month (at least I hope it's "1 day or more" and not "exactly 1 day"... the exact wording is "If you wish to avoid being charged for your free trial, you must cancel the trial one day prior to the auto-renewal.") * You can't then delete your payment method at the same time, and must remember to do so after the end of the billing cycle.

oliv__ 10y ago

> WhatsApp know it and Facebook know it. The NSA knows it too

SixSigma 10y ago

> You can build an incredibly accurate picture of people's lives from metadata Or as former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency., Gen. Michael Hayden, said : "We kill people based on metadata" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc

kuschku 10y ago

Making this an opt-in is automatically illegal in the EU anyway, which makes the fact that they rolled it out like this very surprising.

king_phil 10y ago
Someone has to sue them, now. And it costs a huge sum of money, like 10k+€.

krisa 10y ago

When you will try to actualy delete your fb account (at least when i did it some time ago). Its a minefield of dark patterns. First you need special link, because you can only deactivate from settings. Then you will have to go through pile of emotionaly draining photos of friends with claims that they will mis you and you wont be able to see what they are doing with their lives. Then few traps with agreeing about deletion with switched meanings of buttons. In the end you wont actualy be deleted. You will be put to deactivate mode for 14 days, if your browser accidentaly auto logins then you have to do it again. After 14 days you are sent email and if you miss it and wont acept it in certain time - you wont be deleted. Of course since 1. 1. 2014 it realy doesnt matter because facebook keeps your data even if you delete account. (i deleted it just before 1. 1. 2014 and i still think they kept all the shit, because how would anyone know).

icantdrive55 10y ago
I deactivate all the time. Hit "I don't find Facebook useful.", and its just two click away from deactivation.
- soared 10y ago
  > I accomplish nothing all the time. Hit "I don't find Facebook useful.", and its just two click away from feeling like you deactivated.
nostrademons 10y ago
I've heard that rather than deleting your FB account, it's better to turn it into a piece of obviously-fictitious performance art. Don't try to remove your data from the Internet (which is futile; you know Facebook still has it on some archive somewhere anyway). Instead, replace it with nonsense. Set your interests to your competitors so that you get notifications everytime they release a new feature, and full information about their advertising campaigns. De-friend your actual friends, and friend random celebrities. Make your political views insane. Post status updates generated by Markov-chain or recursive neural net; if you're feeling particularly bold, you could try to reverse-engineer the weights on Facebook's classifiers by generating data and seeing what sort of ads you get. Chances are, doing this will get you kicked off Facebook and deleted pretty quickly. And if it doesn't, you've just fucked with not just Facebook, but all their advertisers. GIGO.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago

It's right next to the sign saying "Beware of the leopard". How could you miss that?

vithlani 10y ago

Sorry, having a hard time getting this. From: https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/26000016 https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/26000016 >You will see a control at the bottom of the screen. If you do not want your account information shared with Facebook to improve your Facebook ads and products experiences, you can uncheck the box or toggle the control Where is all the: "...before WhatsApp is irrevocably sharing your data with Facebook." From the page, I understand that my data won't be shared except to other FB companies for stated purposes (marketing and Ads not being one of those).

calgoo 10y ago

Happened to me this morning, needed to check a whatsapp message, some stupid new terms update so i just hit ok so i can access my account.

thewhitetulip 10y ago

>This is very obviously not the WhatsApp that promised not to fuck with its users when Facebook bought it out. Exactly my point, when whatsapp was bought, they said all these things, that whatsapp doesn't sell out customer information, that whatsapp will never have calling facility because they want to focus on texting alone. I think they should remove the "why we do not sell ads" too, there is no point in this two faced behaviour.