5 ms·

Lujan: It’s been admitted by Facebook that you do collect data points on non-[Facebook users]. My question is, can someone who does not have a Facebook account

Lujan: It’s been admitted by Facebook that you do collect data points on non-[Facebook users]. My question is, can someone who does not have a Facebook account opt out of Facebook’s involuntary data collection? Zuckerberg: Anyone can turn off and opt out of any data collection for ads, whether they use our services or not Is this not just an outright lie? You literally have to use their services to turn off/opt out anything.

BartFutter 8y ago
yes
EquallyJust 8y ago
This isn't a lie. You can opt out of interest based ads without having to be a Facebook user by visiting https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings which redirects you to http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.
- wil421 8y ago
  Found the Facebook shill account. Created one hour ago with copy paste responses.
  - pouta 8y ago
    Is this a bannable offense?
    - wil421 8y ago
      The parent poster actually went and deleted a bunch of post after my comment. Trying to keep a standard on HN.
    - dang 8y ago
      It certainly breaks the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
idunno246 8y ago
Its probably technically true, if you trust facebook. They might respect the DoNotTrack header. If not, most legit advertisers, including facebook, will [claim to] respect AdChoices optout flows: optout.aboutads.info. https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217 https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217 directs you to these sites. Now, they obviously could lie and still record things. Also, this probably doesnt include things like person A has phone number Z and person B as phone number Z so theres some sort of link there, but presumably thats not used for ads. I worked for an ad company that respected the optout/DNT as best we could.
- acct1771 8y ago
  When could you not?
  - idunno246 8y ago
    assuming you mean respecting settings. historical data from before you blocked tracking wasnt explicitly deleted, but it was marked as ignored and rolled out of the system after a month or so(lots of caching). id guess with fb having orders of magnitude more data they do something similar. DNT is easy, thats a header on every call so just drop it on the floor. Unfortunately firefox was always threatening to make it on by default, and IE actually did i believe...and basically all the big ad providers threatened to ignore it if it went on by default. Management basically said we'd do whatever the industry does, but is currently respected. The problem with the opt out flow is how do you store that someone wants you not to store information about them without storing info about them. The standard way is drop a cookie that says dont track, but if you clear cookies youd have to opt out again... which is shitty UX and unexpected. also, since its cookies its opting out the browser, not the user or computer. As a consumer, it sucks because you have no way of knowing if the ad/tracking companies are respecting any of this. And while I'm positive we tried to respect it, and im not aware of any, bugs can happen. That code was part of the most heavily tested stuff since it hit critical paths. On most targeted ads(including but not limited to on facebook) theres a little adchoices(blue triangle) button. If you click on it you can see which company targeted you, some info on what type of targeting, and a link to optout.
antsar 8y ago
The phrase "for ads" probably plays a critical role in his response. Just like the liberal application of "generally" during yesterday's questioning.

BartFutter 8y ago

yes

EquallyJust 8y ago

This isn't a lie. You can opt out of interest based ads without having to be a Facebook user by visiting https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings which redirects you to http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.

wil421 8y ago
Found the Facebook shill account. Created one hour ago with copy paste responses.
- pouta 8y ago
  Is this a bannable offense?
  - wil421 8y ago
    The parent poster actually went and deleted a bunch of post after my comment. Trying to keep a standard on HN.
  - dang 8y ago
    It certainly breaks the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

idunno246 8y ago

Its probably technically true, if you trust facebook. They might respect the DoNotTrack header. If not, most legit advertisers, including facebook, will [claim to] respect AdChoices optout flows: optout.aboutads.info. https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217 https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217 directs you to these sites. Now, they obviously could lie and still record things. Also, this probably doesnt include things like person A has phone number Z and person B as phone number Z so theres some sort of link there, but presumably thats not used for ads. I worked for an ad company that respected the optout/DNT as best we could.

acct1771 8y ago
When could you not?
- idunno246 8y ago
  assuming you mean respecting settings. historical data from before you blocked tracking wasnt explicitly deleted, but it was marked as ignored and rolled out of the system after a month or so(lots of caching). id guess with fb having orders of magnitude more data they do something similar. DNT is easy, thats a header on every call so just drop it on the floor. Unfortunately firefox was always threatening to make it on by default, and IE actually did i believe...and basically all the big ad providers threatened to ignore it if it went on by default. Management basically said we'd do whatever the industry does, but is currently respected. The problem with the opt out flow is how do you store that someone wants you not to store information about them without storing info about them. The standard way is drop a cookie that says dont track, but if you clear cookies youd have to opt out again... which is shitty UX and unexpected. also, since its cookies its opting out the browser, not the user or computer. As a consumer, it sucks because you have no way of knowing if the ad/tracking companies are respecting any of this. And while I'm positive we tried to respect it, and im not aware of any, bugs can happen. That code was part of the most heavily tested stuff since it hit critical paths. On most targeted ads(including but not limited to on facebook) theres a little adchoices(blue triangle) button. If you click on it you can see which company targeted you, some info on what type of targeting, and a link to optout.

antsar 8y ago

The phrase "for ads" probably plays a critical role in his response. Just like the liberal application of "generally" during yesterday's questioning.