5 ms·

"ethically dubious", i consider it criminal; though they probably got some (lawyer written) fine print to say it is not so.

• jondubois 9y ago
  Yes, it sounds like malware. Had any other company done this, it would have caused outrage but for some reason Facebook just seems to get away with everything. I remember how big a deal the News International phone hacking scandal was; this actually seems much worse.
  • willstrafach 9y ago
    Companies which track app download and engagement metrics also do this via VPN apps. That is how they are able to obtain such data. Not new, but also not discussed much.
• daenney 9y ago
  I would be interested to hear from people with knowledge of EU and US law how shady this is in their respective jurisdictions. I'm having a hard time imagining what they did is OK, but I'm probably wrong.
  • WhiteSource1 9y ago
    If you can identify personal data (which if they can tie it to the user's Facebook account, that's pretty easy to do) it's likely (note: not a lawyer) a violation of the EU GDPR regulations (http://www.eugdpr.org/ http://www.eugdpr.org/)
    • daenney 9y ago
      Unfortunately GDPR enforcement is about 9 months away. I don't think it applies retroactively.