5 ms·

Two questions Facebook needs to answer: 1. If I don't have a Facebook account, how can I delete the data Facebook has collected on me without creating an accou

Two questions Facebook needs to answer: 1. If I don't have a Facebook account, how can I delete the data Facebook has collected on me without creating an account? 2. If Facebook doesn't sell data, what is the purpose of shadow profiles?

submeta 9y ago
+1
sebleon 9y ago
1. You can’t. They didn’t have an incentive to prioritize this on product roadmap, at least not until now. 2. Most likely to jump start new accounts. They’ll be able to target ads at your new account better if they already have years of data about your interests.
- kartan 9y ago
  > at least not until now. They have it to finish before the GDPR enforcement date (25 May 2018) - at which time those organizations in non-compliance may face heavy fines. So, all companies big and small need to have a good data governance that allows to delete data on demand. And, better than that, stop collecting any data that they don’t have been authorized to get. https://www.eugdpr.org https://www.eugdpr.org
flatline 9y ago
When asked question 2 before the US Congress, he repeatedly said that it's for security reasons, something about identifying attackers. It sounded to me like a corporate version of crying "national defense!" They really need to give a full accounting of what those are used for.
clarkenheim 9y ago
If Facebook need to answer this question then so do Google, Twitter, Amazon and basically anyone else with a big enough footprint.
drb91 9y ago
> If Facebook doesn't sell data, what is the purpose of shadow profiles? Presumably to sell you ads, which Facebook doesn't consider selling your data--it's just selling access to you, which is only valuable because of the data. Does it really matter if they didn't sell your information if they just used it to show you the same ad they would have showed if they had sold your data? It seems they're relying on the idea that advertisements are somehow an OK form of privacy violation.
- aestetix 9y ago
  How can they show me an ad if I don't have a Facebook account?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jimmytidey 9y ago
    By having data about you facebook can infer stuff about other people who are on Facebook and serve better ads to them.
  - wavesounds 9y ago
    From the post: "Facebook ads and measurement tools, which enable websites and apps to show ads from Facebook advertisers, to run their own ads on Facebook or elsewhere, and to understand the effectiveness of their ads."
  - tintor 9y ago
    Facebook Ads on third party websites. https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/facebook-starts-selling-offsite-ads-targeting-non-users-too/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/facebook-starts-selling-of...
  - noselasd 9y ago
    Facebook runs an ad network (Facebook Audience - how successful, or how much used this is, I don't know though. If you're visiting a site or using a mobile app served from facebooks ad network, you don't need to be on facebook or have a facebook account to be shown an ad.
ameister14 9y ago
With #2, they don't sell the data because they don't need to, and because it would threaten their profits. They use the data themselves to categorize people and sell advertisers access to the categories. As an advertiser, I don't get a list of people - Facebook keeps that hidden. What I get is the knowledge that my ad is shown to the people I want in the category I want, because Facebook does that part for me. Shadow profiles enable them to do this in a much broader way, and also allows them to build growth engines into their system so if you do decide to join facebook, you see hundreds of suggestions that make you more likely to get addicted.
amelius 9y ago
It's not your data because your browser fingerprint hypothetically coincides with somebody else's. Deleting the data would delete somebody else's data too.
- icebraining 9y ago
  No, it's still my data even if FB mixes it up with someone else's. Deleting just part of the data is their problem, not mine.
  - aylmao 9y ago
    You pose an interesting question actually, when is data you generate, "your data"? If the data is only associated with a browser fingerprint then I see the argument for it not being your data; it's just data. It's like saying Google Street view has your data because they took a picture of the front of your business or your house. Does it make a difference if it's your business or your house? If you move out, is it still "your data"? Next, if they have your friend's contacts, is it "your data"? I sync my contacts with a number of services, but I've tended to think of this as "my data", not my friend's data. Is it because I grew knowing about the white pages; so assuming phone numbers are public, a collection of phone numbers to name is my making therefore of my property? Even if it's a collection of data about my friends? Lastly, I think we'd all agree that combining your name and your browsing info would constitute "your data". Is it because there's non-public data associated with your name? Names aren't really unique, is it because the combination of your name and your browsing info IS unique? Also, is facebook capable of doing this? If so how? Never really thought about this before actually.
  - amelius 9y ago
    Ok, you can delete the data, but you can't request Facebook to send you the data it has collected on you.
vinchuco 9y ago
1. how can I delete Why should the burden be on the non-user?
- FilterSweep 9y ago
  Facebook put this burden on non-users, and they're currently arguing that this is "OK" in their probe.
rdiddly 9y ago
We know the answers to these, don't we? 1. There is no way to delete it. Facebook owns it forever. 2. Owning more data is better, for selling ads, for studying trends and behavior, for purposes as-yet ill-defined, and just cuz. And they don't sell data, they give it away.
- smsm42 9y ago
  > And they don't sell data, they give it away. I don't think they sell or give away tracking data. All the data disclosures so far has been about social graph data, which is very different data set. Detailed traffic logs from network like FB would be something that is very hard to collect, wouldn't make sense for them to give such a valuable resource out for free.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Yeah, probably right, I'm just sort of making the point that "it's always worse than you think" and/or that the worst-case scenario is probably always the correct one where Facebook data collection is concerned.
aylmao 9y ago
#2 is probably to jumpstart profiles, but also to have a more accurate representation of the social graph. If I sync my contacts and you show up there, and my friend syncs her/his contacts and you show up there too, assuming phone number are fairly unique identifiers, they can know that we share a mutual friend and that could contribute to their analytics.
xexers 9y ago
Is there a rock solid proof that shadow profiles exist? I only ever seen anecdotal evidence... and Zuck said he's not aware of them. The wikipedia page doesnt have much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Shadow_profiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Shadow_profiles
- rock_hard 9y ago
  Nope, there isn’t. It’s just another one of these crazy myths floating around
- femto 9y ago
  Mark Zuckerberg said yes, but he doesn't call the data a shadow profile [1]. With apologies to Shakespear: "What's in a name? That which we call a shadow profile By any other word would smell as repugnant;" [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2018/04/13/how-facebook-can-have-your-data-even-if-youre-not-facebook/512674002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2018/04/1...
rmc 9y ago
Facebook doesn't sell data, they sell the ability for other people to microtarget. If the result of all this is a law saying that Facebook/etc cannot sell your data, then Mark Zuckerberg will be very happy.

submeta 9y ago

sebleon 9y ago

1. You can’t. They didn’t have an incentive to prioritize this on product roadmap, at least not until now. 2. Most likely to jump start new accounts. They’ll be able to target ads at your new account better if they already have years of data about your interests.

kartan 9y ago
> at least not until now. They have it to finish before the GDPR enforcement date (25 May 2018) - at which time those organizations in non-compliance may face heavy fines. So, all companies big and small need to have a good data governance that allows to delete data on demand. And, better than that, stop collecting any data that they don’t have been authorized to get. https://www.eugdpr.org https://www.eugdpr.org

flatline 9y ago

When asked question 2 before the US Congress, he repeatedly said that it's for security reasons, something about identifying attackers. It sounded to me like a corporate version of crying "national defense!" They really need to give a full accounting of what those are used for.

clarkenheim 9y ago

If Facebook need to answer this question then so do Google, Twitter, Amazon and basically anyone else with a big enough footprint.

drb91 9y ago

> If Facebook doesn't sell data, what is the purpose of shadow profiles? Presumably to sell you ads, which Facebook doesn't consider selling your data--it's just selling access to you, which is only valuable because of the data. Does it really matter if they didn't sell your information if they just used it to show you the same ad they would have showed if they had sold your data? It seems they're relying on the idea that advertisements are somehow an OK form of privacy violation.

aestetix 9y ago
How can they show me an ad if I don't have a Facebook account?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jimmytidey 9y ago
  By having data about you facebook can infer stuff about other people who are on Facebook and serve better ads to them.
- wavesounds 9y ago
  From the post: "Facebook ads and measurement tools, which enable websites and apps to show ads from Facebook advertisers, to run their own ads on Facebook or elsewhere, and to understand the effectiveness of their ads."
- tintor 9y ago
  Facebook Ads on third party websites. https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/facebook-starts-selling-offsite-ads-targeting-non-users-too/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/facebook-starts-selling-of...
- noselasd 9y ago
  Facebook runs an ad network (Facebook Audience - how successful, or how much used this is, I don't know though. If you're visiting a site or using a mobile app served from facebooks ad network, you don't need to be on facebook or have a facebook account to be shown an ad.

ameister14 9y ago

With #2, they don't sell the data because they don't need to, and because it would threaten their profits. They use the data themselves to categorize people and sell advertisers access to the categories. As an advertiser, I don't get a list of people - Facebook keeps that hidden. What I get is the knowledge that my ad is shown to the people I want in the category I want, because Facebook does that part for me. Shadow profiles enable them to do this in a much broader way, and also allows them to build growth engines into their system so if you do decide to join facebook, you see hundreds of suggestions that make you more likely to get addicted.

amelius 9y ago

It's not your data because your browser fingerprint hypothetically coincides with somebody else's. Deleting the data would delete somebody else's data too.

icebraining 9y ago
No, it's still my data even if FB mixes it up with someone else's. Deleting just part of the data is their problem, not mine.
- aylmao 9y ago
  You pose an interesting question actually, when is data you generate, "your data"? If the data is only associated with a browser fingerprint then I see the argument for it not being your data; it's just data. It's like saying Google Street view has your data because they took a picture of the front of your business or your house. Does it make a difference if it's your business or your house? If you move out, is it still "your data"? Next, if they have your friend's contacts, is it "your data"? I sync my contacts with a number of services, but I've tended to think of this as "my data", not my friend's data. Is it because I grew knowing about the white pages; so assuming phone numbers are public, a collection of phone numbers to name is my making therefore of my property? Even if it's a collection of data about my friends? Lastly, I think we'd all agree that combining your name and your browsing info would constitute "your data". Is it because there's non-public data associated with your name? Names aren't really unique, is it because the combination of your name and your browsing info IS unique? Also, is facebook capable of doing this? If so how? Never really thought about this before actually.
- amelius 9y ago
  Ok, you can delete the data, but you can't request Facebook to send you the data it has collected on you.

vinchuco 9y ago

1. how can I delete Why should the burden be on the non-user?

FilterSweep 9y ago
Facebook put this burden on non-users, and they're currently arguing that this is "OK" in their probe.

rdiddly 9y ago

We know the answers to these, don't we? 1. There is no way to delete it. Facebook owns it forever. 2. Owning more data is better, for selling ads, for studying trends and behavior, for purposes as-yet ill-defined, and just cuz. And they don't sell data, they give it away.

smsm42 9y ago
> And they don't sell data, they give it away. I don't think they sell or give away tracking data. All the data disclosures so far has been about social graph data, which is very different data set. Detailed traffic logs from network like FB would be something that is very hard to collect, wouldn't make sense for them to give such a valuable resource out for free.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Yeah, probably right, I'm just sort of making the point that "it's always worse than you think" and/or that the worst-case scenario is probably always the correct one where Facebook data collection is concerned.

aylmao 9y ago

#2 is probably to jumpstart profiles, but also to have a more accurate representation of the social graph. If I sync my contacts and you show up there, and my friend syncs her/his contacts and you show up there too, assuming phone number are fairly unique identifiers, they can know that we share a mutual friend and that could contribute to their analytics.

xexers 9y ago

Is there a rock solid proof that shadow profiles exist? I only ever seen anecdotal evidence... and Zuck said he's not aware of them. The wikipedia page doesnt have much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Shadow_profiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Shadow_profiles

rock_hard 9y ago
Nope, there isn’t. It’s just another one of these crazy myths floating around
femto 9y ago
Mark Zuckerberg said yes, but he doesn't call the data a shadow profile [1]. With apologies to Shakespear: "What's in a name? That which we call a shadow profile By any other word would smell as repugnant;" [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2018/04/13/how-facebook-can-have-your-data-even-if-youre-not-facebook/512674002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2018/04/1...

rmc 9y ago

Facebook doesn't sell data, they sell the ability for other people to microtarget. If the result of all this is a law saying that Facebook/etc cannot sell your data, then Mark Zuckerberg will be very happy.