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Facebook points finger at Google and Twitter for data collection
- test42 8y agoI feel like whoever wrote this article missed the point completely. For the internet to function, websites need your information. If you want to log into a website using Facebook login, Facebook needs to know what website you are logging into. When you watch a Youtube video on someone else's website, in order for that data to be sent to you they need to know what your IP address is and they need to know what website you are viewing the video on. This is how the internet works. You cannot access something from someone else's servers without them knowing what your ip address is. Are we invading people's privacy when we log ip addresses when someone visits a website hosted on our servers now?
- tabeth 8y agoPerhaps the internet must know, but must it remember?
- test42 8y agoYes absolutely, how do you think you prevent people from ddosing and how do you think we prevent spam if not with logs? Also I'm surprised how nobody has mentioned how important this data is for AB testing.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoPerhaps "using customers as guinea pigs" is not the hill you want to die upon? A/B testing is not a good justification for data collection. It may, actually, be a good reason for condemning it.
- Mononokay 8y agoYes. If it can't remember, there won't be progress on anything.
- ethanwillis 8y agoHIPAA has IP addresses listed as one of the unique identifiers you must protect in your dataset.
- tested24 8y agoOnly when associated with medical records... I'm the same person as the other account btw, not trying to hide that.
- ethanwillis 8y agoOh I completely understand that. What I meant to really say is that at least in some realms we already do consider IP addresses as personal information that should be protected.
- ztratar 8y agoSure, when you're explicitly dealing with patient health data... which is not remotely in Facebook's realm.
- uptown 8y agoAre you sure? "Facebook sent a doctor on a secret mission to ask hospitals to share patient data" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/facebook-building-8-explored-data-sharing-agreement-with-hospitals.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/facebook-building-8-explored... "Facebook held a special breakfast for drug marketers about recruiting people for clinical trials" https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/facebook-held-a-breakfast-to-promote-clinical-trials-strategy.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/facebook-held-a-breakfast-to... "How Facebook can ‘unblind’ a clinical trial" https://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Article/2014/06/09/Pfizer-How-Facebook-can-unblind-a-clinical-trial https://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Article/2014/06/09/Pfizer...
- tested24 8y agoYes I'm sure, your links don't bring up any new points. Facebook does not have my medical records.
- uptown 8y ago"If you want to log into a website using Facebook login, Facebook needs to know what website you are logging into." Agreed. But what if you don't want to log into that website, or maybe that site has no login at all. If it has a Facebook "Like" button, that site still sends a ping back to Facebook, letting them know you were there, and feeding Facebook's algorithm about your interests. Same goes for Google Analytics, a Twitter share button, or the growing list of tracking scripts which get executed upon page load without even showing a visual indicator that they serve some purpose. I'd guess that the vast majority of visitors have no idea that by visiting a 3rd party site, they're feeding that visit to the list of 3rd party trackers you find on many sites today.
- tested24 8y agoIf people were educated with how the internet works they would know that the second you load some piece of content from someone else's servers they have your information as well.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> If people were educated with how the internet works they would now that the second you load some piece of content from someone else's servers they have your information as well People aren't. That's why we have laws like Lemon laws [1]--so everyone doesn't have to be a specialist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law
- uptown 8y agoYes, clearly every website user should have an in-depth understanding of how DOM elements are generated on the browser. Seriously, how can one know how a button is produced on a page without inspecting the underlying source code, or looking at the network traffic on the developer console? Even then, this behavior can be obsfucated in the code, and in order to produce the page to generate the content to inspect, you've already generated the remote ping.
- tested24 8y ago
- JKCalhoun 8y ago> If you want to log into a website using Facebook login I don't.
- tested24 8y agoGood for you neither do i. Do you have anything of substance to add?
- dgreensp 8y agoAgreed, I found Facebook’s explanation perfectly adequate and respectable. They are basically explaining cookies and embeds/iframes to a non-technical audience — no more, no less. It makes sense to give other examples like Google ads and Twitter buttons in this context.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Alex3917 8y ago> They are basically explaining cookies and embeds/iframes to a non-technical audience — no more, no less. Right but the main question was whether they were getting data on people from data brokers, and they responded by answering a completely different question.
- hemantv 8y agoHopefully, this starts a meaningful conversation about what other people are also doing. I am not a fan of Facebook but this might get the ball rolling on broader legislation similar to GDPR in US.
- oh-kumudo 8y agoUnder current administration? No.
- wutbrodo 8y agoI'm not so sure about that. The current administration can be kind of unpredictable (to understate it a little...), and this seems like exactly the combination of fuck-the-elitists and Trumpian populism that could work. Silicon Valley, culturally speaking, fits pretty clearly into the subculture that Trump set himself up in opposition to, in a way that even finance doesn't (given that the current govt is an uneasy alliance between business conservatives and right wing populism, as mediated by Trump's personal whims).
- nabc45 8y agoBecause Obama or Hillary would surely do it. Come on man...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
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- RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago>That said, other tech companies have gotten off light. Whether it’s because Apple and Google aren’t CEO’d by their founders any more, or we’ve grown to see iOS and Android as such underlying platforms that they aren’t responsible for what third-party developers do, scrutiny has focused on Zuckerberg and Facebook. Maybe Zuckerberg should do the same thing Larry Page did. Create a parent company for Facebook (maybe call it Library), of which Zuckerberg becomes the CEO. Then find someone else to be the CEO of Facebook. In addition, just like Alphabet and other "Bets", Library could have other "Books". Then, instead of Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook, you have Zuckerberg CEO of Library.
- nkozyra 8y agoI think this discounts the ways in which Facebook differs from Google and Apple as it relates to open, sprawling access to user data. The alphabet conglomeration didn't obfuscate similar issues, nor would Zuckerberg following suit. Facebook's issues are related to unfettered access to a user and their graph(s) and sensitive information. More importantly that they knew of the risk and did little in response. Obviously Google and Apple have their own privacy issues to account for, but it's fundamentally different.
- headsoup 8y agoSo Facebook is going with the tu quoque fallacy. Perhaps the others will be in trouble in future too, but sorry Facebook, it's your turn now.
- cwkoss 8y agospiderman-pointing-at-spiderman.jpg
- Johnny555 8y agoWell Facebook, if all of the other companies jumped off a bridge, would you do it too? Saying "But they do it too!" is no defense. Though it does make the argument for stronger regulation.
- shady-lady 8y agoI personally don't really care about what information they collect. I do hugely care who they give that information to & what they do with it. Haven't heard anything about Google wholesale handing all my data over to anybody who clicks a couple buttons to sign up to their developer program though. I'm guessing Facebook has the technical expertise to allow 3rd parties to run aggregate (non identifying) queries on the consenting users' data on servers they control and only allowing certain aggregated data, as well as limiting the number and type of queries 3rd parties are running. Guess it's easier to just let anybody have at it to prove how valuable their platform/data is.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> I personally don't really care about what information they collect If the government said "let's make a database of every Jew in America," people would get rightfully riled up. Yet we've allowed a single entity to assemble a database orders of magnitudes more detailed.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago> If the government said "let's make a database of every Jew in America," people would get rightfully riled up. This is an interesting case. You're completely correct, but it's basically a special privilege that Jews enjoy (and that has spread to a taboo on asking about religion on the census). If you're part of any other demographic group and you don't want to be counted, you get yelled at for not seeing the grand scientific project of the US census in the proper light. But I don't really see that a database of every Jew in America is more inherently suggestive of abuse (if you're a Jew) than a database of every black in America is (if you're black).
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> it's basically a special privilege that Jews enjoy Any group with (a) a living memory of violent ostracisation and (b) some ability to conceal their group membership knows this. Gay men and women, for example, would fight against a sexual orientation question on the census. (One wonders if Tim Cook, had he not been born a gay man in Mobile, Alabama, would be as sensitive to privacy issues.) Side note: I used Jews in my example because we have a case study for them. In countries where databases of religious affiliation were kept, oftentimes for tax purposes, the Nazis took advantage.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoI really dislike the, "well, they do it too!" form of argument. It shows a tremendous lack of maturity.
- marcell 8y agoContrary to most comments here, it is significant that other companies do. Facebook competes in the free market. If they scale back on data collection, that will hurt their offering to advertisers and cost them money that will go to Google and others. That lost revenue will harm their ability to retain talent and build new products, and ultimately cost them their user base. “We don’t track you” is not as compelling a feature as “free video chat across the globe.” Facebook doesn’t operate in a vacuum. They can’t scale back data collection unless others do. Moreover, the United States doesn’t exist in a vacuum either. Scaling back all US companies will give a leg up to competitors in more lenient jurisdictions.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> Scaling back all US companies will give a leg up to competitors in more lenient jurisdictions Laws can be written to only apply to American users. That would leave American companies free to compete on level terms in other countries.
- marcell 8y agoSort of, the issue is companies typically bootstrap in their domestic market. If laws are restrictive it will kill companies before they even get to the point of international expansion.
- thisisit 8y agoI am sure Facebook looked at today's internet discourse and thought - If whatabout-ism works for every discussion out there, why not us? Hence, they asked - What about Google? What about Twitter? They just dint go the full mile and asked - What about Amazon? What about those emails? What about "world peace"? But, whatabout-ism misses an important point - we cannot get everything all at once. Everything happens one step at a time.