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>The company continued to build new private APIs for device makers through 2014, spreading user data through tens of millions of mobile devices, game consoles,

by sigmar 8y ago

>The company continued to build new private APIs for device makers through 2014, spreading user data through tens of millions of mobile devices, game consoles, televisions and other systems outside Facebook’s direct control. So Facebook says "we don't sell data," but they are giving manufacturers access to data in exchange for being integrated/pre-installed on the device. How is that not "selling" data? Just because they aren't receiving cash?

huntermeyer 8y ago
They chose their words carefully.
mtgx 8y ago
IT's been obvious they do exactly that since the Zuckerberg hearings. But all of the politicians asking him questions seem to have missed that subtlety and kept asking about "selling data". Facebook hardly sells any data. It just shares it for free with a ton of partners (and without freely-given user consent).
- infinitismal8 8y ago
  Every instance of third parties accessing user data has been with user consent.
makomk 8y ago
They're not giving manufacturers access to data in exchange for being integrated/pre-installed on the device; they're giving those manufacturers' apps access to data because they need that access in order to be able to present that data to the users who are accessing Facebook through those apps. It's not a quid pro quo, it's something that's fundamentally necessary for the apps in question to actually allow users to interact with Facebook through them.
- sigmar 8y ago
  That might have been true in certain cases, but the article makes it clear there were other situations: >Facebook acknowledged that some partners did store users’ data — including friends’ data — on their own servers. A Facebook official said that regardless of where the data was kept, it was governed by strict agreements between the companies. Furthermore, why would they be putting an end to all these "partnerships" if they were "fundamentally necessary for the app"? Manufacturers can turn to the normal api that any other app dev uses.
  - makomk 8y ago
    If you read the NYT article, there's one pretty obvious reason why they can get away with ending the partnerships now: almost everyone has smartphones that can just run the official Facebook app. It probably also helps to understand that on a few of the older platforms, almost everything went through the manufacturer's servers, including email and sometimes even web browsing. While I guess technically they could've use the normal API and only got the same information as Farmville or any random quiz could, this would have the result that - depending on what phones your friends used - you wouldn't be able to share information with all your friends without also sharing it with Farmville, Cambridge Analytica, and all the other shady Facebook platform apps that weren't held to the same privacy standards. That doesn't seem like a win to me, particularly since getting someone to click "yes" on a permissions dialog is a lot easier than creating a widely-used hardware platform and convincing them to use it. (Of course, given just how many intrusive permissions it demands, getting everyone on the official Facebook app arguably isn't a great leap forward for privacy either.)

by sigmar 8y ago

huntermeyer 8y ago

They chose their words carefully.

mtgx 8y ago

IT's been obvious they do exactly that since the Zuckerberg hearings. But all of the politicians asking him questions seem to have missed that subtlety and kept asking about "selling data". Facebook hardly sells any data. It just shares it for free with a ton of partners (and without freely-given user consent).

infinitismal8 8y ago
Every instance of third parties accessing user data has been with user consent.

makomk 8y ago

They're not giving manufacturers access to data in exchange for being integrated/pre-installed on the device; they're giving those manufacturers' apps access to data because they need that access in order to be able to present that data to the users who are accessing Facebook through those apps. It's not a quid pro quo, it's something that's fundamentally necessary for the apps in question to actually allow users to interact with Facebook through them.

sigmar 8y ago
That might have been true in certain cases, but the article makes it clear there were other situations: >Facebook acknowledged that some partners did store users’ data — including friends’ data — on their own servers. A Facebook official said that regardless of where the data was kept, it was governed by strict agreements between the companies. Furthermore, why would they be putting an end to all these "partnerships" if they were "fundamentally necessary for the app"? Manufacturers can turn to the normal api that any other app dev uses.
- makomk 8y ago
  If you read the NYT article, there's one pretty obvious reason why they can get away with ending the partnerships now: almost everyone has smartphones that can just run the official Facebook app. It probably also helps to understand that on a few of the older platforms, almost everything went through the manufacturer's servers, including email and sometimes even web browsing. While I guess technically they could've use the normal API and only got the same information as Farmville or any random quiz could, this would have the result that - depending on what phones your friends used - you wouldn't be able to share information with all your friends without also sharing it with Farmville, Cambridge Analytica, and all the other shady Facebook platform apps that weren't held to the same privacy standards. That doesn't seem like a win to me, particularly since getting someone to click "yes" on a permissions dialog is a lot easier than creating a widely-used hardware platform and convincing them to use it. (Of course, given just how many intrusive permissions it demands, getting everyone on the official Facebook app arguably isn't a great leap forward for privacy either.)