4 ms·

No surprise there, if you don't want any service collecting any of your data, don't use their service. Unfortunately, that doesn't go far enough. I don't use

by dsp1234 10y ago

No surprise there, if you don't want any service collecting any of your data, don't use their service. Unfortunately, that doesn't go far enough. I don't use FB, but that doesn't mean it doesn't collect my data. It does because my husband and friends use FB, and I do not control the information they share about me with FB. Currently it has to be, "if you don't want any service collecting any of your data, don't use their service, and don't interact with other people or companies who use their service.". As an example of where your original statement fails, I don't want to be tracked in the mall by companies tracking my phone.

wvenable 10y ago
But your husband and friends are at fault for sharing your information, not FB. Take Facebook out of the equation and you still have friends showing your picture around, perhaps to people you don't want them to. In a Facebookless world, you would simply tell them to stop. My point is that it isn't Facebook's fault that your friends share too much about you.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  Yes, which means the original commenters position of "don't use their service" isn't strong enough, which is what I said. Note that "their service" isn't limited to FB.
  - TheBeardKing 10y ago
    Can it even store biometric data for you if it doesn't know who you are? I was under the assumption that it's only stored if your profile is linked with your face in a photo.
    - dsp1234 10y ago
      Can it even store biometric data for you if it doesn't know who you are? That's a weirdly phrased question, since your biometric data is, by definition, part of "who you are". I was under the assumption that it's only stored if your profile is linked with your face in a photo. My comment has more do with the base concept of "don't want to be tracked, don't use their service" as a general concept for any service, rather than FB specific (which is why I gave a non-FB example). That said, I don't know if the rumors of "shadow profiles" are true or not. There is no technical reason why an image with two people in it (one of him which they already have) tagged with a comment of "Me and my wife on our honeymoon", couldn't be parsed given current NLP and face recognition capabilities.
    - webspiderus 10y ago
      Sure, you can create a set of 'face templates' that may or not be linked to a profile, and then match against them as long as you have some meaningful way to use the matching templates without a profile.
cookiecaper 10y ago
>Currently it has to be, "if you don't want any service collecting any of your data, don't use their service, and don't interact with other people or companies who use their service." Not sure you have any other option. Most of the time, you can't restrain what other people choose to do with images they've taken that contain your likeness, and you can't stop them from posting content that mentions their spouses. That person is willfully disclosing this data under the terms they've accepted. If the person is disclosing data about you that you don't want disclosed, that's an issue between you and that person, not that person and the entity who receives their willful, free, and unprompted disclosures. Facebook can't know a priori that the user intends to disclose information on a person who doesn't want Facebook to know about them, and thus can't do anything about it until it's too late. Allowing people to delete other peoples' content because they don't want to be mentioned/included in it is an obvious non-starter (and Facebook already includes this to a reasonable extent with untagging features). The privacy threat could be partially, not totally, mitigated by radically changing the way we approach online services, but I don't see how that could be pushed through. It wouldn't benefit any commercial entity, so no one with private motive would bankroll it to a height that could reasonably challenge FB, and it surely wouldn't be fair to use police/military force to dismantle Facebook et al and force users into a hypothetical somewhat-more-private decentralized, self-hosted, encrypted Facebook replacement, so we're basically stuck. The reality is that this is the world we live in now. I don't think there's really a way to avoid it. Legal solutions that prevent vendors from referencing some data points may limit some effects here and there, but I think it's going to be difficult to craft something that really accomplishes anything big, and the tech and data is still going to be out there and used by some people regardless of the legal status.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  The reality is that this is the world we live in now. I don't think there's really a way to avoid it I agree. Which is why when the original commenter stopped at "don't use their service", I pointed out that that action isn't enough. It's not good advice, because it doesn't actually work.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > Legal solutions that prevent vendors from referencing some data points may limit some effects here and there, but I think it's going to be difficult to craft something that really accomplishes anything big, and the tech and data is still going to be out there and used by some people regardless of the legal status. I think you underestimate the effectiveness of laws and punitive damages for breaking said laws. Seems to be working fairly well in reining in companies like AirBnB and Uber, its a matter of time before we rein in companies using data mining.

by dsp1234 10y ago

wvenable 10y ago

But your husband and friends are at fault for sharing your information, not FB. Take Facebook out of the equation and you still have friends showing your picture around, perhaps to people you don't want them to. In a Facebookless world, you would simply tell them to stop. My point is that it isn't Facebook's fault that your friends share too much about you.

dsp1234 10y ago
Yes, which means the original commenters position of "don't use their service" isn't strong enough, which is what I said. Note that "their service" isn't limited to FB.
- TheBeardKing 10y ago
  Can it even store biometric data for you if it doesn't know who you are? I was under the assumption that it's only stored if your profile is linked with your face in a photo.
  - dsp1234 10y ago
    Can it even store biometric data for you if it doesn't know who you are? That's a weirdly phrased question, since your biometric data is, by definition, part of "who you are". I was under the assumption that it's only stored if your profile is linked with your face in a photo. My comment has more do with the base concept of "don't want to be tracked, don't use their service" as a general concept for any service, rather than FB specific (which is why I gave a non-FB example). That said, I don't know if the rumors of "shadow profiles" are true or not. There is no technical reason why an image with two people in it (one of him which they already have) tagged with a comment of "Me and my wife on our honeymoon", couldn't be parsed given current NLP and face recognition capabilities.
  - webspiderus 10y ago
    Sure, you can create a set of 'face templates' that may or not be linked to a profile, and then match against them as long as you have some meaningful way to use the matching templates without a profile.

cookiecaper 10y ago

>Currently it has to be, "if you don't want any service collecting any of your data, don't use their service, and don't interact with other people or companies who use their service." Not sure you have any other option. Most of the time, you can't restrain what other people choose to do with images they've taken that contain your likeness, and you can't stop them from posting content that mentions their spouses. That person is willfully disclosing this data under the terms they've accepted. If the person is disclosing data about you that you don't want disclosed, that's an issue between you and that person, not that person and the entity who receives their willful, free, and unprompted disclosures. Facebook can't know a priori that the user intends to disclose information on a person who doesn't want Facebook to know about them, and thus can't do anything about it until it's too late. Allowing people to delete other peoples' content because they don't want to be mentioned/included in it is an obvious non-starter (and Facebook already includes this to a reasonable extent with untagging features). The privacy threat could be partially, not totally, mitigated by radically changing the way we approach online services, but I don't see how that could be pushed through. It wouldn't benefit any commercial entity, so no one with private motive would bankroll it to a height that could reasonably challenge FB, and it surely wouldn't be fair to use police/military force to dismantle Facebook et al and force users into a hypothetical somewhat-more-private decentralized, self-hosted, encrypted Facebook replacement, so we're basically stuck. The reality is that this is the world we live in now. I don't think there's really a way to avoid it. Legal solutions that prevent vendors from referencing some data points may limit some effects here and there, but I think it's going to be difficult to craft something that really accomplishes anything big, and the tech and data is still going to be out there and used by some people regardless of the legal status.

dsp1234 10y ago
The reality is that this is the world we live in now. I don't think there's really a way to avoid it I agree. Which is why when the original commenter stopped at "don't use their service", I pointed out that that action isn't enough. It's not good advice, because it doesn't actually work.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
> Legal solutions that prevent vendors from referencing some data points may limit some effects here and there, but I think it's going to be difficult to craft something that really accomplishes anything big, and the tech and data is still going to be out there and used by some people regardless of the legal status. I think you underestimate the effectiveness of laws and punitive damages for breaking said laws. Seems to be working fairly well in reining in companies like AirBnB and Uber, its a matter of time before we rein in companies using data mining.