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Facebook has asked U.S. banks to share financial information about customers

597 points by tysone 8y ago

koolba 8y ago
> The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users. s/offer new services to users/increase revenue per user/ Once you've reached the levels of market saturation that Facebook has the only way to grow is value per-user, specifically in 1st world countries where there's actual value to be had. > One large U.S. bank pulled away from talks due to privacy concerns, some of the people said. Good for them. I wish I knew which one. > Banks face pressure to build relationships with big online platforms, which reach billions of users and drive a growing share of commerce. They also are trying to reach more users digitally. Many struggle to gain traction in mobile payments. That's an industry problem, not an individual bank problem. Also, credit cards are already very convenient and near universally accepted. It's hard to compete with that. Only the uninformed would use a different payment technologies with less convenience and weaker chargeback/fraud guarantees. > Bank executives are worried about the breadth of information being sought, even if it means not being available on certain platforms that their customers use. It is unclear whether bank customers would need to opt-in to the proposed Facebook services or what other privacy protections might be offered. It's unclear to me what segment of bank customers would knowingly agree to anything remotely close to this.
- joering2 8y ago
  > Good for them. I wish I knew which one. Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo. > It's unclear to me what segment of bank customers would knowingly agree to anything remotely close to this. Customers would not agree much, correct. However since credit cards are not your money, you are limited in the ways to tell the bank how and what to share or not to share with other players on the market, since its bank's money you operated with, and bank's goal is to make as much money off of lending it to you as possible. (of course I don't like; jsut so you know before you downvote) This is in fact even right in your face. Any new card (or renewal you got in mail) has a few pages attached to it, called something like "what do we do with your information and how can you stop us", where it clearly draws a matrix table with YES/NO of what information they share, with whom, and in which example you can change their default behavior (hint: not always)
  - kabulykos 8y ago
    Your unsourced assertion does makes sense. WF isn't well positioned to survive any further SNAFUs — technical ones in particular. Plus I don't think of them as being primarily focused on their CC business in a way Chase, Citi or Amex are. More a complement of their retail banking and mortgage businesses.
  - bitmapbrother 8y ago
    >Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo. I'd be surprised if it wasn't. Wells Fargo is still asking for forgiveness in their Jon Hamm narrated Earning Back Your Trust[0] commercial. It would be incredibly stupid of them to engage in another scheme to take advantage of their customers at this time. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrivHxCeeY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrivHxCeeY
    - vl 8y ago
      Funny enough I had no idea that Wells Fargo was mixed up in any scandal before I saw these ads. Even then I didn't know what scandal was about, and finally this comment prompted me to look it up. :)
      - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
        US media has more important issues to cover than major banking scandals.
        mehrdadn 8y ago
        Huh? The Wells Fargo stuff was all over the news.
  - iamdave 8y ago
    Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo. I'm asking anyway because a statement like this absolutely demands more than what you're offering for anyone to take a statement like this, in this context remotely serious. Not even an article or something published from WF to support the claim, that the rest of us may benefit from?
- aaavl2821 8y ago
  > Once you've reached the levels of market saturation that Facebook has the only way to grow is value per-user, specifically in 1st world countries where there's actual value to be had. I remember a few years ago some hedge fund friends pitching Facebook as a digital age "value investment" because of its competitive moat and compounding returns. Idea being the more users you get the more revenue you get, and these benefits compound. The issue with that is, as you mention, they already have most of the users they'd plan to get. To continue to grow, they need to better monetize users by 1) more ads per user or 2) higher price per ad Seems like they tried 1) the last few years and it failed. Now maybe they are trying 2), but the best way to get higher price ads is through better targeting, which will require deeper privacy intrusions
  - ethbro 8y ago
    #3 Drain all value around you. Increase price of same data / data-supported services you've been selling third parties, as they have no alternate seller to choose. I suspect this is why Facebook is so insistent on the "free" price point. Less from a revenue perspective than to make it impossible to stay in business long enough to compete with them.
- krotton 8y ago
  > Also, credit cards are already very convenient and near universally accepted. It's hard to compete with that. Oh, come on. Maybe it's a US thing, but credit card is the last but one (just before a manual transfer) payment method I use (in Europe, Poland most of the time). It requires providing full credentials to every merchant you transact with on-line. It requires taking out your wallet and typing all this data in. Or taking out your wallet and taking photos of both sides in some modern apps, then checking for correctness. I actually use PayPal as my card payment gate to minimize the number of parties that see my complete set of payment authorization data. Credit cards are moderately convenient when used off-line and completely unadapted to being used on-line.
  - epanchin 8y ago
    Credit cards have section 75 protection, PayPal does not. It’s certainly convenient to use, but comparatively unwise. Edit: except for small transactions when 75 doesn’t apply. Also I don’t know if it’s in Poland too, but I’d guess so.
    - dwringer 8y ago
      I interpreted the post to mean Paypal is the poster's preferred choice for using as a credit card processing gateway. Merchants can sign up with Paypal to handle all card transactions, and buyers don't need a Paypal account to use it. From the buyer's perspective, this is just an ordinary credit card transaction, it just shows up as being directed through Paypal as a middleman. The convenience is when buyers do have a Paypal account, then they no longer have to re-enter CC# details even on sites they've never purchased from as long as they support Paypal-processed credit-card payments. FWIW I take the same option, because it does feel nice to buy from a website without typing credit card information into some ad-hoc javascript form they came up with. Note that this is not the same thing as making a payment from a Paypal account.
  - rusk 8y ago
    Just out of curiosity what do you use to capitalises your PayPal account? For me it’s linked directly to my credit card so it’s basically a shell of convenience above that. What do you use when a vendor doesn’t support PayPal? I still encounter these regulalarly
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "including card transactions and checking account balances," It's hard to imagine how anyone could even consider this being OK without the user being asked and being able to revoke permission anytime.
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  > s/offer new services to users/increase revenue per user/ Well, in theory, offering "more aligned" (eyeroll) products to users is technically 'new services', but ugh.
- ww520 8y ago
  > as part of an effort to offer new services to users. Sorry. The "users" are not you. They are advertisers.
imh 8y ago
How is it legal for the banks to share this? I'm confused.
- prostoalex 8y ago
  Mint and a host of other financial dashboard products allow you to plug-in account credentials and see balances in one place.
  - mortenjorck 8y ago
    Most of those services are probably using Plaid to connect to customers' online banking accounts, which is always done through an explicit, user-driven auth. In fact, it has to be done this way of necessity; Plaid has traditionally used scraping to get data. Facebook, however, is trying to go in through the backdoor. From the article: "It is unclear whether bank customers would need to opt-in to the proposed Facebook services or what other privacy protections might be offered."
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - cityzen 8y ago
    So are you saying that idiots will knowingly link their bank accounts to Facebook and star in their own Black Mirror episode? Sounds amazing.
    - compiler-guy 8y ago
      "idiots" willingly and knowingly already do this with Mint. And Quicken; and other financial services sites. The only question is if Facebook develops a sufficiently compelling financial product for the mostly not concerned to share this data. You might not think it is a good idea. I don't think it is a good idea, but plenty of people will determine that the tradeoff is worth it.
      - 8y ago
walterbell 8y ago
Good way to trigger a bank data run, where customers remove their money & data en-masse from the bank that leaks their info to Facebook.
- hw 8y ago
  I'd be happy to move away from banks that buy in on this. You'd think with all the privacy pledges it's made over the past few months, that FB would think twice about doing something like this. Facebook, why don't you focus more on developer relations and the community that made FB a platform and worth what it is today. Go on forums and the developer Pages and you'll see how strained and alienated developers are. From instant API shutdowns (Instagram) to turning off access to apps that have paying clients that rely on FB API because the app review failed (thanks to reviewers who often don't read the testing notes) and sudden rate limits or access restriction without prior notice, developing on the FB platform has been frustrating.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  I'm going to say something terrifying, and it should cause you terror indeed: Most people don't shop banks. Ask random coworkers why they use the bank they do - "Well, that's what my parents used" or "that's what was convenient" is the usual reply. Anytime I ask people if they pay fees for regular banking, they look at me like I'm a crazy person - "of course I pay fees all the time, but I don't pay very much..." Most banks are terrible and treat you terribly unless you keep enough money with them to get the special treatment.
  - vwcx 8y ago
    I've noticed this with several friends who complained about the fees their bank is charging them on a simple savings or checking account. It is like people don't realize that banks pay to borrow your money and anything else is a naive perversion of the concept.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    This is correct, and why cities like New York are literally becoming infested by banks on every corner. For every branch they open they can count on some kind of percentage of the people that live in a close radius to end up with accounts.
394549 8y ago
Paywall bypass: http://archive.is/uTZHO http://archive.is/uTZHO
pssflops 8y ago
Now all my friends know my meager salary thanks to the latest breach at Chasebook.
gt_ 8y ago
How can we determine which banks are participating?
imgabe 8y ago
If Facebook could give the banks sufficient reason to actually develop an api for exporting data in a granular way, that would be a good thing. I don't like entering my bank password in mint just for it to scrape the account balance. There should be a separate read-only service with a token that can send that information to services I want to have it. Coinbase seems to manage to do this pretty well.
- Artemis2 8y ago
  If you bank in Europe, look up PSD2 :-)
- lozaning 8y ago
  WF can go build a bridge and then jump off it, but they do at least have a thing where you can create an additional read only log in.
alex_young 8y ago
This spring, Facebook committed to ending their third party merchant data integration with advertisers.[0] Now they are directly partnering with the banks to gather this data and more, with the stated purpose of offering products based on this data. Why is it OK for Facebook to use this data to sell things directly, but not when they partner with external advertisers? Why should the public trust Facebook with this highly sensitive data? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/29/facebook-longtime-friend-of-data-brokers-becomes-their-stiffest-competition/?utm_term=.885d732488d3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/29...
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  > Why is it OK for Facebook to use this data to sell things directly, but not when they partner with external advertisers? Why should the public trust Facebook with this highly sensitive data? It's, in theory, vaguely better. When partnering, they have a contract with the external party, and not you. So there's nothing stopping their partners selling it to whomever. That being said, Facebook is already on 'thin ice' with me. But it doesn't seem to deter them too much, other than feel good ads about how Facebook loves us all.
swalsh 8y ago
Perhaps Facebook should also scoop up my medical records, so drug companies can improve the way they advertise to me. I'm sure all those posts about my beer reviews will help my doctor diagnosis my chronic gout. Seems like a 2-sided deal. /sarcasm
- cityzen 8y ago
  gout is amazing, isn't it?
- ribble 8y ago
  news has been out about facebook seeking access to medical records for a while now https://www.grahamcluley.com/facebooks-secret-plan-to-access-hospital-patient-records/ https://www.grahamcluley.com/facebooks-secret-plan-to-access...
- Spooky23 8y ago
  They already do. My wife had a very early ruptured ectopic pregnancy (which she wasn't aware of), which nearly killed her. On the week that the baby would have been born, Enfamil launched an acquisition campaign targeted at expectant mothers that month, kicked off by a Fedex package containing bottled/powered formula (worth about $60) and including Facebook campaign targeting new mothers. This was very upsetting to us, so I dug in, found out from the company where they obtained out information, and obtained the list. I spoke to a couple of physician and nurse friends who are pretty confident that it was a combination of the ER admission, an imaging claim, and a drug that was prescribed and filled in the hospital that made it highly likely to an observer that she was pregnant -- but didn't provide enough detail to determine that she left the hospital not pregnant. It turns out that information regarding hospital admission, insurance claims and prescription fulfillment is available and slurped up by various parties, who are able to de-anonymize it. It contained alot of information, including accurate salary history, cars we owned, approximate credit score, where we bought baby stuff for our previous child, etc. I make it a point to share this whenever appropriate, as it was a very painful violation of our privacy, and really threw me for a loop, as I couldn't fathom that our medical providers were selling our data to help pitch diapers and formula. Facebook and many other companies either has access to this information by buying lists, or can extrapolate by looking at advertiser patterns.
dvtrn 8y ago
Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or share it with third parties. Why on Earth would/should anyone believe this after Cambridge Analytica?
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  Well, did Facebook ever say it wouldn’t share data with third parties prior to Cambridge Analytica? My own impression is that they were always very open about reserving the right to do whatever they want with all data, until the CA scandal first caused an actual nontrivial number of people to care. I'd love to be pointed to relevant facts I might be missing.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    On the one hand, that's probably a valid point-if a very dangerous game of technicalities to be playing. On the other hand, I'm less perturbed by what Facebook says it will do-and what Facebook actually does in the absence of a governing policy to begin with. Like, for example, not vetting applications that utilize the swaths of data it consumes from its users https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/26/facebook-didnt-read-the-terms-and-conditions-for-the-app-behind-cambridge-analytica/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b207978e1881 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/26...
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  Exactly. I mean, what use of the data does it have otherwise?
- kentosi 8y ago
  Moreso, why on earth would they then need this data in the first place?
- drb91 8y ago
  I’d believe it. There are plenty of other ways to make money off private data. This sounds like they were specifically saying they don’t use data in a that particular way.
DINKDINK 8y ago
Now politicians will be able tug at the precise, dollar amount your heart needs to get you to vote for them.
motohagiography 8y ago
Reminds me of that line from the show Narcos that translates to, "Silver, or lead." What is a retail bank but some product ledgers and user identities? Banks understand that they are rapidly being reduced to artifacts of regulation. The ones I have spoken to have a primary mandate to "preserve the business model." The identity information FB has is often more reliable and valuable than the documents governments provide. Perhaps to coin a phrase, what FB and other social platforms have is "collateralized identity," where your relationships and personal behavior data are the collateral on the assertion of identity. The documented one relatively is just a "registered identity." Difference is the amount of friction, authentication, and recourse you have to each of them. A registered identity is mainly for legal recourse (tax, travel, and law enforcement.) What FB has might lack a bit of recourse, but it has anti-gravity frictionlessness, and a high degree of authentication. The point at which an institution becomes indifferent to the level of recourse in the identity and switches to one with less friction, more data, and more authentication - looks pretty similar. In fact, the ones who demand registered identity are at a structural disadvantage to orgs who provide services using collatoralized identity. There is very little to keep FB from becoming a global bank, and current banks will have the option to participate, or compete against the ones who do. It's strategic in so many ways. I don't think this is a normal business arrangement. It may more resemble offering terms on which FB will accept the banks' surrender.
- mmanfrin 8y ago
  Reminds me of that line from the show Narcos that translates to, "Silver, or lead." In case someone misses this meaning, silver or lead refers to either accepting a bribe (silver, money) or taking a bullet (lead).
  - masukomi 8y ago
    thanks. i was assuming it was referring to which material for the bullet you were inevitably going to take.
    - cpeterso 8y ago
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
I wonder if the banks are going to provide enough meta-data about their customers that FB will be able to know which bank you bank at, what type of accounts you have, etc. no matter what, ahem, privacy settings you have enabled in FB?
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Privacy settings don't make any difference to what FB can see on your account, only other people (that don't have special access from Facebook)
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  It's going to wind up as a targeting option. You can sell a million impressions by people with a household income over $100k for far more than the untargeted impression. How it currently works is that Chase etc knows how much money you make and other banking information, so they can upload your contact info and run targeted campaigns with a combination of Chase's information on your banking & credit card info and Facebook's targeting. The change would allow Facebook to categorize you based off your Chase financial info and let other companies start paying a premium to advertise to you as well. In practice, it means that when you get approved for an auto loan and start shopping around, you'll magically start getting advertisements for cars and dealerships, since there's now something like an "approved for an Auto loan in the last 30 days" category that these businesses can target with their advertising. Or when you open a business checking account you'll start getting advertisements for point-of-sale systems.
raincom 8y ago
Once banks share the info with FB, expect more prosecutions by "parallel construction" using FinCEN databases, etc.
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  Metadata about who talks to who when, along with when cash is withdrawn, can likely pinpoint drug dealers. It likely isn't even that hard - a dumb algorithm of something like "rank people by how often their friends withdraw more than $100 of cash within a day of talking to them, divided by how often their friends withdraw more than $100 of cash" would hit a good number of them.
  - raincom 8y ago
    Right now, they are catching medium level drug dealers, prostitution rings, massage parlors, etc using SAR reports filed by banks. Basically, when someone deposits $4000 cash every month for a couple of years; expect him to get busted. Once the guy gets busted, he must be thinking about how he got caught. It is banks' active spying: under regulation, banks have become active spies. It is a new way of spying: force private entities to comply for suspicious activity, with a huge discretion given to regulatory bodies on the scope of what the word 'suspicious' entails.
throwawaymanbot 8y ago
Beyond Scummy. Isnt lil Mark Z rich enough?
greggarious 8y ago
Any bank that gave my information to Facebook without my explicit, opt-in consent would immediately lose me as a customer. (Heck, I might switch just for asking.) Luckily I bank with a credit union (not for profit) which does not constantly try to monetize me.
rusk 8y ago
Perhaps relevant [0] another looney EU initiative /s “Net neutrality” for the banking sector. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive
aero142 8y ago
Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or share it with third parties. “We don’t use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads,” said spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana. “We also don’t have special relationships, partnerships, or contracts with banks or credit-card companies to use their customers’ purchase data for ads.” How do journalists expect me to interpret this? The first sentence says Facebook made a promise, and the second paragraph reads like a supporting quote. The quote doesn't make the promise claimed in the first paragraph. Should I assume that a Facebook representative made the promise, but the actual quote got cut. Or should I assume that three different authors can't critically read a sentence to tell that the quote only makes statements about current practices? Why do we accept articles from major outlets without publishing the full text of the interview with Facebook?
- rayiner 8y ago
  To be charitable: colloquially, "we do not" can mean "it is against our principles or practice to do so." E.g. "we do not put our customers' safety at risk" implies "and we will continue to do so in the future," not "but that may change at any time."
  - aero142 8y ago
    Right, but the second sentence says they don't have special agreements with the banks. But the whole article is about how they are requesting new agreements with banks that have been turned down by the banks for vague "privacy" related reasons. It is not colloquial to say "we don't have agreements" when you are referring to a future agreement that hasn't been signed yet. You would definitely say that as "we are not discussing agreements for ad purposes."
    - mirimir 8y ago
      This is so over-the-top that I really don't know what to think, except WTF? But banks already monetize customer data, so I suppose that it's not unprecedented. Still, what can Facebook be thinking? Given all the controversy over Cambridge Analytica etc, you'd think that they'd be pushing some privacy PR. But no, they're digging deeper. What is up with that?
atonse 8y ago
This is so nutty, that all our private matters are just being bartered about without our explicit permission. All because we don't have any good regulation in the US regarding data sharing. This is not the same as Plaid and Mint, where we explicitly give those services access to our accounts in exchange for direct benefits to us.
- gt_ 8y ago
  I wonder what the average American citizen could do that would help to get such legislation passed. Any ideas?
  - black6 8y ago
    We can start by voting against every incumbent on the ballot this fall. Congress continues to act against the public good, except for a few (mostly) Democrats, and they all deserve to be fired. Take it a step farther and vote against anyone with a (D) or (R) next to their name on the ballot.
    - auntienomen 8y ago
      This will not work. You can not expect to achieve your ends by acting in random fashion. You're going to actually have to do the hard work of figuring out who's good on this issue and who's not.
      - logfromblammo 8y ago
        Everyone needs to run for office and vote for themselves. Failing that, find out who is running that most faithfully represents your interests, and vote for them. The current federal government is so far out of step with the populace that a blanket anti-incumbent rule doesn't seem all that bad. The only real question is whether to vote against them in the general election, or just the primaries. There is a very real possibility that someone else on the ballot is actually worse than the incumbent, which barely seems possible, yet here we are.
      - 8y ago
qaz_plm 8y ago
Another paywall bypass as I'm having issues with the archive.is service... https://outline.com/waMHEq https://outline.com/waMHEq
AdamM12 8y ago
"Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or share it with third parties." Feel like this only pertains to time of publishing. They will just wait a month or two until everyone forgets and do it anyway.
ejlangev 8y ago
If you believe that a company whose whole purpose is to use data on you to sell ads won't use data on you that it collects to sell ads then I have a bridge to sell you. Funny that people complained so much about GDPR being bad for business and then get upset when things like this happen. It's almost like the two are related or something...
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  > If you believe that a company whose whole purpose is to use data on you to sell ads won't use data on you that it collects to sell ads then I have a bridge to sell you. On this particular case I would probably agree with you, but I'm not sure it's true in general. From what I understand, for example, Facebook doesn't use your messages for ads. It seems unlikely but not 100% implausible that it could be the same here.
  - brisance 8y ago
    Depends on what you mean by "ads". I stopped using FB since April but still use WhatsApp because my contacts use it. In the last 2 weeks, I've been getting email spam notifications to check what these WhatsApp contacts are doing on FB. i.e. FB has been sending me notifications about people who are both on FB and on WhatsApp, and only those with whom I message on WhatsApp on a regular basis. The likelihood of this being entirely coincidental is probably close to 0.
    - catdog 8y ago
      They may not use the content of the message but all its metadata which may even be more valuable, alone because it's easier to process automatically.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
oh-kumudo 8y ago
Who gives FB the right to even ask for such information in the first place? So they don't see any legal challenges could arise from such request? Seems ridiculous to me.
- walshemj 8y ago
  And its not like FB arn't in trouble all around the world. Mark doesn't need some idiot manager in the company pinning please kick me sign on his back. I where him id start firing one or two board members
BloodyHands 8y ago
Somebody needs to kill Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg is an internal enemy of the people of the United States of America. Mark Zuckerberg is not a human being. Mark Zuckerberg is target practice for the American people. Mark Zuckerberg is life unworthy of life. Mark Zuckerberg is a clear and present danger to the USA. The CIA needs to shoot Mark Zuckerberg to death point blank yesterday.
jjgreen 8y ago
If you value your privacy, use cash.
- sgroppino 8y ago
  or bitcoin?
  - lozaning 8y ago
    Anymore bitcoin is getting harder and harder to obtain without some kind of paper trail to your real identity. The only bitcoin I'd consider to be private and untraceable right now would be bitcoin that was mined directly to a wallet. Cant follow the thread past its end.
  - jsoc815 8y ago
    It seems that in Finland, and I'm sure they're not alone, that isn't a wholly viable option for many. [1] As was said above, cash is probably one's best bet, which is part of the reason that there is currently so much talk among gov't officials about doing away w/it. [1] https://metropolitan.fi/entry/tax-authorities-in-finland-matching-bitcoin-transactions-bank-transfers-to-collect-tax-on-crypto-trading-profits https://metropolitan.fi/entry/tax-authorities-in-finland-mat...
throw2016 8y ago
Facebook has also tried to get its hands on hospital data [1]. Add this to that and these are clearly the actions of a bad actor. Its difficult to believe there are groups of people working on these kind of programs who do not see anything wrong. At this point shaming will not work, people know what they are doing and can't claim ignorance. Perhaps there must be a wider acknowledgement of the ethical vacuum in technology, and we do not deserve the public's trust and are actively building the very dystopia some of us postured so heavily about. [1] 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...
cmsonger 8y ago
IMO a clarion call to do one of two things: Either stop using Facebook. Or start pushing politically. We either need people to have either greater control over the data companies have retain and use (Europe's approach). Restrictions on what that data can be used for and the ways in which companies and people may treat you differently due to that data.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bogomipz 8y ago
>"“We don’t use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads,” said spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana." This sounds to be like typical FB weasel-wording. "We don't" as in "we don't currently"? Which is not the same as "We won't." But even if this statement lacked ambiguity does anybody believe anything FB says at this point? We already know that FB purchases "offline" third-party data from data brokers[1], so why else would an advertising company buy even more data from if not to make more money from advertising? [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-user...
artursapek 8y ago
https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-Story/dp/0812977866 https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-Story/dp/08129778...
mwexler 8y ago
This article has many, many problems, and misrepresents what's actually being proposed. No data is shared in either way without clear consumer opt in. No bank is randomly giving data to Facebook. Facebook is not buying data from the banks. The totally misconstrued experience the article appears to be about is primarily for messenger chatbot approaches that are already in use for paypal and a few banks (BMO, Wells Fargo to name two) across the world. The user has to volunteer to start the chatbot in FB messenger, then go through a myriad of permission screens (including an oAuth) to give permission to the chatbot to see some transactions and answer a few other basic account questions ("How much do I spend on groceries?" "When is my payment due?"). Privacy policies for existing chatbots describe all data usage. Users can easily revoke their permissions and remove the chatbot. This is the same level of data you've given to various PFM apps like Clarity or Mint. And if you haven't, cool, you won't want to do this with Facebook either, no problem. It's with clear and conspicuous permissions. Facebook has publicly and clearly said that they won't use the data to target ads, and they would be sued by everyone if they turned out to have lied about something as important as credit card or bank data. Not to say they won't get caught a year from now abusing the data, nor can anyone say that banks won't abuse any data they get from FB... but if you believe this, don't use the chatbot and they won't see your bank data nor let the bank see your FB data. Facebook has done and facilitated some dreadful things, but letting folks access their banking data with permission via chat is the US catching up to what WeChat already has: millions of people accessing their banking via chat.
- briandear 8y ago
  The problem with Facebook chat access to banking is Facebook. I don’t want Facebook to become just like WeChat where you pretty much have to have WeChat to engage in many forms of commerce in China. I want less Facebook pervasivness — not more of it. iMessage for Businesses is far better from a privacy standpoint as well as usability. Facebook apps on iPhone are notorious battery hogs not to mention have a history of very sketchy practices. Facebook lost my trust long ago. The only way I’d use Facebook again is if Tim Cook ran it. In the meantime, I can simply open the Chase app and see my balance in literally one-tap (assuming FaceID is turned on.) Much faster than typing a Messenger message. I don’t want Facebook having access to my bank balances either.
samstave 8y ago
cant the loophole here be simply that you have agreed to a TOS with FB, where they said they wont be sharing data, but you may have agreed to the TOS of the bank who says they share with third parties to determine credit worthiness etc. so then FB pay the bank for your financial data anf FB then mines said data they purchsed from entity you authorised to do so... then FB "anonymizes" data which it in turn sells as a product whereby the completeness and/relevance value of the productized FB data is higher as it is informed by the data that they purchased. pluas it is trivial for facebook to correlate you with your bank and etc... so, yeah, looks like fb can evily get around stupid TOS checks.
v0ldem0rt 8y ago
The usual Facebook move! Why are people surprised here?
sreyaNotfilc 8y ago
Goodness, why can't Facebook just be a site used to connect people together? Nothing more, nothing less. How is sharing financial information helping me to connect with my high school buddies?
calimac 8y ago
Facebook should know better that fcra of 1974 prohibits them from releasing data to third parties without Express consent from the depositor and Dodd-Frank from 2010 or 2012 prohibits the sharing of data. Facebook knows good and well that what they're asking for is illegal against a shooting regulation. That should tell you everything you need to know about Facebook Behavior
eaandkw 8y ago
And here is when everyone's insurance premiums go up. It will work kind of like shadow banning on Twitter. The rates will go up based on your past purchases. Especially now that most credit cards provide level 3 transaction details.
ladyexplainalot 8y ago
Facebook has to stay on top of competitors like WhatsApp and Instagram, which they ended up buying, and now they’re worried about competing with services like Venmo. They have to or they’ll lose marketshare. Although the market mechanism usually creates the right incentives for companies to act in their customers’ interest this could be a new type of market failure. Imposing a cost on customers that wasn’t agreed upon by reducing the cost of surveillance for hackers and governments. The "cost" is lower because the information is already collected and just needs to be obtained. So how can we fix that? Putting the data in the hands of government, where it’s probably more likely to be stolen? I assume that facebook has better cyber security than any government agency and a better incentive to keep their customers’ data secure. Or maybe breaking facebook up into multiple companies in an anti-trust litigation that will take a decade to settle? I might end up sounding like a blockchain proponent here. To be honest I think that most blockchain applications are scams or an overly complicated solution where an old fashioned data base would be totally sufficient. I actually think that blockchain technology has a very big draw back, because ownership is an important part of markets and creating the right incentives for companies. I’m very convinced that the majority of people who are working on some blockchain project don’t have a clue about what they’re talking about. I can’t claim to really understand blockchain in every detail either. My credentials are that I studied undergrad economics at Columbia and helped found a bitcoin exchange software company in 2013 and worked there until last year. So from an economics point of view, my guess is that blockchain, despite the drawback of eliminating ownership, could be a solution to this specific type of market failure. Here's a video that explores the trade off between ownership and censorship resistance in a bit more detail: https://youtu.be/pHOYORGZrps https://youtu.be/pHOYORGZrps
deleted 8y ago
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dbg31415 8y ago
This is so creepy, but expected. Banks will say they are only handing over antonimized data... and Facebook will find away to pair spending with location and de-anonymize the data —- a move the banks anticipated and agreed to all along. So shady.
guessed 8y ago
Are they trying to build something like Apple Pay?
guessed 8y ago
Could they be trying to build a payment service, something similar to PayPal or ApplePay or TenPay?
makecheck 8y ago
I think Facebook has basically reached the “do whatever we can imagine and occasionally apologize if it goes too far” phase. When software can implement ideas in a short period of time, we need laws that can work even faster. Speed up the process somehow, and “default answer: No”, or something...

597 points by tysone 8y ago

> The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users. s/offer new services to users/increase revenue per user/ Once you've reached the levels of market saturation that Facebook has the only way to grow is value per-user, specifically in 1st world countries where there's actual value to be had. > One large U.S. bank pulled away from talks due to privacy concerns, some of the people said. Good for them. I wish I knew which one. > Banks face pressure to build relationships with big online platforms, which reach billions of users and drive a growing share of commerce. They also are trying to reach more users digitally. Many struggle to gain traction in mobile payments. That's an industry problem, not an individual bank problem. Also, credit cards are already very convenient and near universally accepted. It's hard to compete with that. Only the uninformed would use a different payment technologies with less convenience and weaker chargeback/fraud guarantees. > Bank executives are worried about the breadth of information being sought, even if it means not being available on certain platforms that their customers use. It is unclear whether bank customers would need to opt-in to the proposed Facebook services or what other privacy protections might be offered. It's unclear to me what segment of bank customers would knowingly agree to anything remotely close to this.

joering2 8y ago
> Good for them. I wish I knew which one. Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo. > It's unclear to me what segment of bank customers would knowingly agree to anything remotely close to this. Customers would not agree much, correct. However since credit cards are not your money, you are limited in the ways to tell the bank how and what to share or not to share with other players on the market, since its bank's money you operated with, and bank's goal is to make as much money off of lending it to you as possible. (of course I don't like; jsut so you know before you downvote) This is in fact even right in your face. Any new card (or renewal you got in mail) has a few pages attached to it, called something like "what do we do with your information and how can you stop us", where it clearly draws a matrix table with YES/NO of what information they share, with whom, and in which example you can change their default behavior (hint: not always)
- kabulykos 8y ago
  Your unsourced assertion does makes sense. WF isn't well positioned to survive any further SNAFUs — technical ones in particular. Plus I don't think of them as being primarily focused on their CC business in a way Chase, Citi or Amex are. More a complement of their retail banking and mortgage businesses.
- bitmapbrother 8y ago
  >Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo. I'd be surprised if it wasn't. Wells Fargo is still asking for forgiveness in their Jon Hamm narrated Earning Back Your Trust[0] commercial. It would be incredibly stupid of them to engage in another scheme to take advantage of their customers at this time. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrivHxCeeY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrivHxCeeY
  - vl 8y ago
    Funny enough I had no idea that Wells Fargo was mixed up in any scandal before I saw these ads. Even then I didn't know what scandal was about, and finally this comment prompted me to look it up. :)
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      US media has more important issues to cover than major banking scandals.
      - mehrdadn 8y ago
        Huh? The Wells Fargo stuff was all over the news.
- iamdave 8y ago
  Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo. I'm asking anyway because a statement like this absolutely demands more than what you're offering for anyone to take a statement like this, in this context remotely serious. Not even an article or something published from WF to support the claim, that the rest of us may benefit from?
aaavl2821 8y ago
> Once you've reached the levels of market saturation that Facebook has the only way to grow is value per-user, specifically in 1st world countries where there's actual value to be had. I remember a few years ago some hedge fund friends pitching Facebook as a digital age "value investment" because of its competitive moat and compounding returns. Idea being the more users you get the more revenue you get, and these benefits compound. The issue with that is, as you mention, they already have most of the users they'd plan to get. To continue to grow, they need to better monetize users by 1) more ads per user or 2) higher price per ad Seems like they tried 1) the last few years and it failed. Now maybe they are trying 2), but the best way to get higher price ads is through better targeting, which will require deeper privacy intrusions
- ethbro 8y ago
  #3 Drain all value around you. Increase price of same data / data-supported services you've been selling third parties, as they have no alternate seller to choose. I suspect this is why Facebook is so insistent on the "free" price point. Less from a revenue perspective than to make it impossible to stay in business long enough to compete with them.
krotton 8y ago
> Also, credit cards are already very convenient and near universally accepted. It's hard to compete with that. Oh, come on. Maybe it's a US thing, but credit card is the last but one (just before a manual transfer) payment method I use (in Europe, Poland most of the time). It requires providing full credentials to every merchant you transact with on-line. It requires taking out your wallet and typing all this data in. Or taking out your wallet and taking photos of both sides in some modern apps, then checking for correctness. I actually use PayPal as my card payment gate to minimize the number of parties that see my complete set of payment authorization data. Credit cards are moderately convenient when used off-line and completely unadapted to being used on-line.
- epanchin 8y ago
  Credit cards have section 75 protection, PayPal does not. It’s certainly convenient to use, but comparatively unwise. Edit: except for small transactions when 75 doesn’t apply. Also I don’t know if it’s in Poland too, but I’d guess so.
  - dwringer 8y ago
    I interpreted the post to mean Paypal is the poster's preferred choice for using as a credit card processing gateway. Merchants can sign up with Paypal to handle all card transactions, and buyers don't need a Paypal account to use it. From the buyer's perspective, this is just an ordinary credit card transaction, it just shows up as being directed through Paypal as a middleman. The convenience is when buyers do have a Paypal account, then they no longer have to re-enter CC# details even on sites they've never purchased from as long as they support Paypal-processed credit-card payments. FWIW I take the same option, because it does feel nice to buy from a website without typing credit card information into some ad-hoc javascript form they came up with. Note that this is not the same thing as making a payment from a Paypal account.
- rusk 8y ago
  Just out of curiosity what do you use to capitalises your PayPal account? For me it’s linked directly to my credit card so it’s basically a shell of convenience above that. What do you use when a vendor doesn’t support PayPal? I still encounter these regulalarly
maxxxxx 8y ago
"including card transactions and checking account balances," It's hard to imagine how anyone could even consider this being OK without the user being asked and being able to revoke permission anytime.
FireBeyond 8y ago
> s/offer new services to users/increase revenue per user/ Well, in theory, offering "more aligned" (eyeroll) products to users is technically 'new services', but ugh.
ww520 8y ago
> as part of an effort to offer new services to users. Sorry. The "users" are not you. They are advertisers.

imh 8y ago

How is it legal for the banks to share this? I'm confused.

prostoalex 8y ago
Mint and a host of other financial dashboard products allow you to plug-in account credentials and see balances in one place.
- mortenjorck 8y ago
  Most of those services are probably using Plaid to connect to customers' online banking accounts, which is always done through an explicit, user-driven auth. In fact, it has to be done this way of necessity; Plaid has traditionally used scraping to get data. Facebook, however, is trying to go in through the backdoor. From the article: "It is unclear whether bank customers would need to opt-in to the proposed Facebook services or what other privacy protections might be offered."
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- cityzen 8y ago
  So are you saying that idiots will knowingly link their bank accounts to Facebook and star in their own Black Mirror episode? Sounds amazing.
  - compiler-guy 8y ago
    "idiots" willingly and knowingly already do this with Mint. And Quicken; and other financial services sites. The only question is if Facebook develops a sufficiently compelling financial product for the mostly not concerned to share this data. You might not think it is a good idea. I don't think it is a good idea, but plenty of people will determine that the tradeoff is worth it.
    - 8y ago

walterbell 8y ago

Good way to trigger a bank data run, where customers remove their money & data en-masse from the bank that leaks their info to Facebook.

hw 8y ago
I'd be happy to move away from banks that buy in on this. You'd think with all the privacy pledges it's made over the past few months, that FB would think twice about doing something like this. Facebook, why don't you focus more on developer relations and the community that made FB a platform and worth what it is today. Go on forums and the developer Pages and you'll see how strained and alienated developers are. From instant API shutdowns (Instagram) to turning off access to apps that have paying clients that rely on FB API because the app review failed (thanks to reviewers who often don't read the testing notes) and sudden rate limits or access restriction without prior notice, developing on the FB platform has been frustrating.
vorpalhex 8y ago
I'm going to say something terrifying, and it should cause you terror indeed: Most people don't shop banks. Ask random coworkers why they use the bank they do - "Well, that's what my parents used" or "that's what was convenient" is the usual reply. Anytime I ask people if they pay fees for regular banking, they look at me like I'm a crazy person - "of course I pay fees all the time, but I don't pay very much..." Most banks are terrible and treat you terribly unless you keep enough money with them to get the special treatment.
- vwcx 8y ago
  I've noticed this with several friends who complained about the fees their bank is charging them on a simple savings or checking account. It is like people don't realize that banks pay to borrow your money and anything else is a naive perversion of the concept.
- CPLX 8y ago
  This is correct, and why cities like New York are literally becoming infested by banks on every corner. For every branch they open they can count on some kind of percentage of the people that live in a close radius to end up with accounts.

394549 8y ago

Paywall bypass: http://archive.is/uTZHO http://archive.is/uTZHO

pssflops 8y ago

Now all my friends know my meager salary thanks to the latest breach at Chasebook.

gt_ 8y ago

How can we determine which banks are participating?

imgabe 8y ago

If Facebook could give the banks sufficient reason to actually develop an api for exporting data in a granular way, that would be a good thing. I don't like entering my bank password in mint just for it to scrape the account balance. There should be a separate read-only service with a token that can send that information to services I want to have it. Coinbase seems to manage to do this pretty well.

Artemis2 8y ago
If you bank in Europe, look up PSD2 :-)
lozaning 8y ago
WF can go build a bridge and then jump off it, but they do at least have a thing where you can create an additional read only log in.

alex_young 8y ago

This spring, Facebook committed to ending their third party merchant data integration with advertisers.[0] Now they are directly partnering with the banks to gather this data and more, with the stated purpose of offering products based on this data. Why is it OK for Facebook to use this data to sell things directly, but not when they partner with external advertisers? Why should the public trust Facebook with this highly sensitive data? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/29/facebook-longtime-friend-of-data-brokers-becomes-their-stiffest-competition/?utm_term=.885d732488d3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/29...

FireBeyond 8y ago
> Why is it OK for Facebook to use this data to sell things directly, but not when they partner with external advertisers? Why should the public trust Facebook with this highly sensitive data? It's, in theory, vaguely better. When partnering, they have a contract with the external party, and not you. So there's nothing stopping their partners selling it to whomever. That being said, Facebook is already on 'thin ice' with me. But it doesn't seem to deter them too much, other than feel good ads about how Facebook loves us all.

swalsh 8y ago

Perhaps Facebook should also scoop up my medical records, so drug companies can improve the way they advertise to me. I'm sure all those posts about my beer reviews will help my doctor diagnosis my chronic gout. Seems like a 2-sided deal. /sarcasm

cityzen 8y ago
gout is amazing, isn't it?
ribble 8y ago
news has been out about facebook seeking access to medical records for a while now https://www.grahamcluley.com/facebooks-secret-plan-to-access-hospital-patient-records/ https://www.grahamcluley.com/facebooks-secret-plan-to-access...
Spooky23 8y ago
They already do. My wife had a very early ruptured ectopic pregnancy (which she wasn't aware of), which nearly killed her. On the week that the baby would have been born, Enfamil launched an acquisition campaign targeted at expectant mothers that month, kicked off by a Fedex package containing bottled/powered formula (worth about $60) and including Facebook campaign targeting new mothers. This was very upsetting to us, so I dug in, found out from the company where they obtained out information, and obtained the list. I spoke to a couple of physician and nurse friends who are pretty confident that it was a combination of the ER admission, an imaging claim, and a drug that was prescribed and filled in the hospital that made it highly likely to an observer that she was pregnant -- but didn't provide enough detail to determine that she left the hospital not pregnant. It turns out that information regarding hospital admission, insurance claims and prescription fulfillment is available and slurped up by various parties, who are able to de-anonymize it. It contained alot of information, including accurate salary history, cars we owned, approximate credit score, where we bought baby stuff for our previous child, etc. I make it a point to share this whenever appropriate, as it was a very painful violation of our privacy, and really threw me for a loop, as I couldn't fathom that our medical providers were selling our data to help pitch diapers and formula. Facebook and many other companies either has access to this information by buying lists, or can extrapolate by looking at advertiser patterns.

dvtrn 8y ago

Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or share it with third parties. Why on Earth would/should anyone believe this after Cambridge Analytica?

emiliobumachar 8y ago
Well, did Facebook ever say it wouldn’t share data with third parties prior to Cambridge Analytica? My own impression is that they were always very open about reserving the right to do whatever they want with all data, until the CA scandal first caused an actual nontrivial number of people to care. I'd love to be pointed to relevant facts I might be missing.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  On the one hand, that's probably a valid point-if a very dangerous game of technicalities to be playing. On the other hand, I'm less perturbed by what Facebook says it will do-and what Facebook actually does in the absence of a governing policy to begin with. Like, for example, not vetting applications that utilize the swaths of data it consumes from its users https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/26/facebook-didnt-read-the-terms-and-conditions-for-the-app-behind-cambridge-analytica/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b207978e1881 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/26...
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
Exactly. I mean, what use of the data does it have otherwise?
kentosi 8y ago
Moreso, why on earth would they then need this data in the first place?
drb91 8y ago
I’d believe it. There are plenty of other ways to make money off private data. This sounds like they were specifically saying they don’t use data in a that particular way.

DINKDINK 8y ago

Now politicians will be able tug at the precise, dollar amount your heart needs to get you to vote for them.

motohagiography 8y ago

Reminds me of that line from the show Narcos that translates to, "Silver, or lead." What is a retail bank but some product ledgers and user identities? Banks understand that they are rapidly being reduced to artifacts of regulation. The ones I have spoken to have a primary mandate to "preserve the business model." The identity information FB has is often more reliable and valuable than the documents governments provide. Perhaps to coin a phrase, what FB and other social platforms have is "collateralized identity," where your relationships and personal behavior data are the collateral on the assertion of identity. The documented one relatively is just a "registered identity." Difference is the amount of friction, authentication, and recourse you have to each of them. A registered identity is mainly for legal recourse (tax, travel, and law enforcement.) What FB has might lack a bit of recourse, but it has anti-gravity frictionlessness, and a high degree of authentication. The point at which an institution becomes indifferent to the level of recourse in the identity and switches to one with less friction, more data, and more authentication - looks pretty similar. In fact, the ones who demand registered identity are at a structural disadvantage to orgs who provide services using collatoralized identity. There is very little to keep FB from becoming a global bank, and current banks will have the option to participate, or compete against the ones who do. It's strategic in so many ways. I don't think this is a normal business arrangement. It may more resemble offering terms on which FB will accept the banks' surrender.

mmanfrin 8y ago
Reminds me of that line from the show Narcos that translates to, "Silver, or lead." In case someone misses this meaning, silver or lead refers to either accepting a bribe (silver, money) or taking a bullet (lead).
- masukomi 8y ago
  thanks. i was assuming it was referring to which material for the bullet you were inevitably going to take.
  - cpeterso 8y ago

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

I wonder if the banks are going to provide enough meta-data about their customers that FB will be able to know which bank you bank at, what type of accounts you have, etc. no matter what, ahem, privacy settings you have enabled in FB?

throwaway2048 8y ago
Privacy settings don't make any difference to what FB can see on your account, only other people (that don't have special access from Facebook)
ThrustVectoring 8y ago
It's going to wind up as a targeting option. You can sell a million impressions by people with a household income over $100k for far more than the untargeted impression. How it currently works is that Chase etc knows how much money you make and other banking information, so they can upload your contact info and run targeted campaigns with a combination of Chase's information on your banking & credit card info and Facebook's targeting. The change would allow Facebook to categorize you based off your Chase financial info and let other companies start paying a premium to advertise to you as well. In practice, it means that when you get approved for an auto loan and start shopping around, you'll magically start getting advertisements for cars and dealerships, since there's now something like an "approved for an Auto loan in the last 30 days" category that these businesses can target with their advertising. Or when you open a business checking account you'll start getting advertisements for point-of-sale systems.

raincom 8y ago

Once banks share the info with FB, expect more prosecutions by "parallel construction" using FinCEN databases, etc.

ThrustVectoring 8y ago
Metadata about who talks to who when, along with when cash is withdrawn, can likely pinpoint drug dealers. It likely isn't even that hard - a dumb algorithm of something like "rank people by how often their friends withdraw more than $100 of cash within a day of talking to them, divided by how often their friends withdraw more than $100 of cash" would hit a good number of them.
- raincom 8y ago
  Right now, they are catching medium level drug dealers, prostitution rings, massage parlors, etc using SAR reports filed by banks. Basically, when someone deposits $4000 cash every month for a couple of years; expect him to get busted. Once the guy gets busted, he must be thinking about how he got caught. It is banks' active spying: under regulation, banks have become active spies. It is a new way of spying: force private entities to comply for suspicious activity, with a huge discretion given to regulatory bodies on the scope of what the word 'suspicious' entails.

throwawaymanbot 8y ago

Beyond Scummy. Isnt lil Mark Z rich enough?

greggarious 8y ago

Any bank that gave my information to Facebook without my explicit, opt-in consent would immediately lose me as a customer. (Heck, I might switch just for asking.) Luckily I bank with a credit union (not for profit) which does not constantly try to monetize me.

rusk 8y ago

Perhaps relevant [0] another looney EU initiative /s “Net neutrality” for the banking sector. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive

aero142 8y ago

Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or share it with third parties. “We don’t use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads,” said spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana. “We also don’t have special relationships, partnerships, or contracts with banks or credit-card companies to use their customers’ purchase data for ads.” How do journalists expect me to interpret this? The first sentence says Facebook made a promise, and the second paragraph reads like a supporting quote. The quote doesn't make the promise claimed in the first paragraph. Should I assume that a Facebook representative made the promise, but the actual quote got cut. Or should I assume that three different authors can't critically read a sentence to tell that the quote only makes statements about current practices? Why do we accept articles from major outlets without publishing the full text of the interview with Facebook?

rayiner 8y ago
To be charitable: colloquially, "we do not" can mean "it is against our principles or practice to do so." E.g. "we do not put our customers' safety at risk" implies "and we will continue to do so in the future," not "but that may change at any time."
- aero142 8y ago
  Right, but the second sentence says they don't have special agreements with the banks. But the whole article is about how they are requesting new agreements with banks that have been turned down by the banks for vague "privacy" related reasons. It is not colloquial to say "we don't have agreements" when you are referring to a future agreement that hasn't been signed yet. You would definitely say that as "we are not discussing agreements for ad purposes."
  - mirimir 8y ago
    This is so over-the-top that I really don't know what to think, except WTF? But banks already monetize customer data, so I suppose that it's not unprecedented. Still, what can Facebook be thinking? Given all the controversy over Cambridge Analytica etc, you'd think that they'd be pushing some privacy PR. But no, they're digging deeper. What is up with that?

atonse 8y ago

This is so nutty, that all our private matters are just being bartered about without our explicit permission. All because we don't have any good regulation in the US regarding data sharing. This is not the same as Plaid and Mint, where we explicitly give those services access to our accounts in exchange for direct benefits to us.

gt_ 8y ago
I wonder what the average American citizen could do that would help to get such legislation passed. Any ideas?
- black6 8y ago
  We can start by voting against every incumbent on the ballot this fall. Congress continues to act against the public good, except for a few (mostly) Democrats, and they all deserve to be fired. Take it a step farther and vote against anyone with a (D) or (R) next to their name on the ballot.
  - auntienomen 8y ago
    This will not work. You can not expect to achieve your ends by acting in random fashion. You're going to actually have to do the hard work of figuring out who's good on this issue and who's not.
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      Everyone needs to run for office and vote for themselves. Failing that, find out who is running that most faithfully represents your interests, and vote for them. The current federal government is so far out of step with the populace that a blanket anti-incumbent rule doesn't seem all that bad. The only real question is whether to vote against them in the general election, or just the primaries. There is a very real possibility that someone else on the ballot is actually worse than the incumbent, which barely seems possible, yet here we are.
    - 8y ago

qaz_plm 8y ago

Another paywall bypass as I'm having issues with the archive.is service... https://outline.com/waMHEq https://outline.com/waMHEq

AdamM12 8y ago

"Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or share it with third parties." Feel like this only pertains to time of publishing. They will just wait a month or two until everyone forgets and do it anyway.

ejlangev 8y ago

If you believe that a company whose whole purpose is to use data on you to sell ads won't use data on you that it collects to sell ads then I have a bridge to sell you. Funny that people complained so much about GDPR being bad for business and then get upset when things like this happen. It's almost like the two are related or something...

mehrdadn 8y ago
> If you believe that a company whose whole purpose is to use data on you to sell ads won't use data on you that it collects to sell ads then I have a bridge to sell you. On this particular case I would probably agree with you, but I'm not sure it's true in general. From what I understand, for example, Facebook doesn't use your messages for ads. It seems unlikely but not 100% implausible that it could be the same here.
- brisance 8y ago
  Depends on what you mean by "ads". I stopped using FB since April but still use WhatsApp because my contacts use it. In the last 2 weeks, I've been getting email spam notifications to check what these WhatsApp contacts are doing on FB. i.e. FB has been sending me notifications about people who are both on FB and on WhatsApp, and only those with whom I message on WhatsApp on a regular basis. The likelihood of this being entirely coincidental is probably close to 0.
  - catdog 8y ago
    They may not use the content of the message but all its metadata which may even be more valuable, alone because it's easier to process automatically.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

oh-kumudo 8y ago

Who gives FB the right to even ask for such information in the first place? So they don't see any legal challenges could arise from such request? Seems ridiculous to me.

walshemj 8y ago
And its not like FB arn't in trouble all around the world. Mark doesn't need some idiot manager in the company pinning please kick me sign on his back. I where him id start firing one or two board members

BloodyHands 8y ago

Somebody needs to kill Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg is an internal enemy of the people of the United States of America. Mark Zuckerberg is not a human being. Mark Zuckerberg is target practice for the American people. Mark Zuckerberg is life unworthy of life. Mark Zuckerberg is a clear and present danger to the USA. The CIA needs to shoot Mark Zuckerberg to death point blank yesterday.

jjgreen 8y ago

If you value your privacy, use cash.

sgroppino 8y ago
or bitcoin?
- lozaning 8y ago
  Anymore bitcoin is getting harder and harder to obtain without some kind of paper trail to your real identity. The only bitcoin I'd consider to be private and untraceable right now would be bitcoin that was mined directly to a wallet. Cant follow the thread past its end.
- jsoc815 8y ago
  It seems that in Finland, and I'm sure they're not alone, that isn't a wholly viable option for many. [1] As was said above, cash is probably one's best bet, which is part of the reason that there is currently so much talk among gov't officials about doing away w/it. [1] https://metropolitan.fi/entry/tax-authorities-in-finland-matching-bitcoin-transactions-bank-transfers-to-collect-tax-on-crypto-trading-profits https://metropolitan.fi/entry/tax-authorities-in-finland-mat...

throw2016 8y ago

Facebook has also tried to get its hands on hospital data [1]. Add this to that and these are clearly the actions of a bad actor. Its difficult to believe there are groups of people working on these kind of programs who do not see anything wrong. At this point shaming will not work, people know what they are doing and can't claim ignorance. Perhaps there must be a wider acknowledgement of the ethical vacuum in technology, and we do not deserve the public's trust and are actively building the very dystopia some of us postured so heavily about. [1] 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...

cmsonger 8y ago

IMO a clarion call to do one of two things: Either stop using Facebook. Or start pushing politically. We either need people to have either greater control over the data companies have retain and use (Europe's approach). Restrictions on what that data can be used for and the ways in which companies and people may treat you differently due to that data.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bogomipz 8y ago

>"“We don’t use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads,” said spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana." This sounds to be like typical FB weasel-wording. "We don't" as in "we don't currently"? Which is not the same as "We won't." But even if this statement lacked ambiguity does anybody believe anything FB says at this point? We already know that FB purchases "offline" third-party data from data brokers[1], so why else would an advertising company buy even more data from if not to make more money from advertising? [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-user...

artursapek 8y ago

https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-Story/dp/0812977866 https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-Story/dp/08129778...

mwexler 8y ago

This article has many, many problems, and misrepresents what's actually being proposed. No data is shared in either way without clear consumer opt in. No bank is randomly giving data to Facebook. Facebook is not buying data from the banks. The totally misconstrued experience the article appears to be about is primarily for messenger chatbot approaches that are already in use for paypal and a few banks (BMO, Wells Fargo to name two) across the world. The user has to volunteer to start the chatbot in FB messenger, then go through a myriad of permission screens (including an oAuth) to give permission to the chatbot to see some transactions and answer a few other basic account questions ("How much do I spend on groceries?" "When is my payment due?"). Privacy policies for existing chatbots describe all data usage. Users can easily revoke their permissions and remove the chatbot. This is the same level of data you've given to various PFM apps like Clarity or Mint. And if you haven't, cool, you won't want to do this with Facebook either, no problem. It's with clear and conspicuous permissions. Facebook has publicly and clearly said that they won't use the data to target ads, and they would be sued by everyone if they turned out to have lied about something as important as credit card or bank data. Not to say they won't get caught a year from now abusing the data, nor can anyone say that banks won't abuse any data they get from FB... but if you believe this, don't use the chatbot and they won't see your bank data nor let the bank see your FB data. Facebook has done and facilitated some dreadful things, but letting folks access their banking data with permission via chat is the US catching up to what WeChat already has: millions of people accessing their banking via chat.

briandear 8y ago
The problem with Facebook chat access to banking is Facebook. I don’t want Facebook to become just like WeChat where you pretty much have to have WeChat to engage in many forms of commerce in China. I want less Facebook pervasivness — not more of it. iMessage for Businesses is far better from a privacy standpoint as well as usability. Facebook apps on iPhone are notorious battery hogs not to mention have a history of very sketchy practices. Facebook lost my trust long ago. The only way I’d use Facebook again is if Tim Cook ran it. In the meantime, I can simply open the Chase app and see my balance in literally one-tap (assuming FaceID is turned on.) Much faster than typing a Messenger message. I don’t want Facebook having access to my bank balances either.

samstave 8y ago

cant the loophole here be simply that you have agreed to a TOS with FB, where they said they wont be sharing data, but you may have agreed to the TOS of the bank who says they share with third parties to determine credit worthiness etc. so then FB pay the bank for your financial data anf FB then mines said data they purchsed from entity you authorised to do so... then FB "anonymizes" data which it in turn sells as a product whereby the completeness and/relevance value of the productized FB data is higher as it is informed by the data that they purchased. pluas it is trivial for facebook to correlate you with your bank and etc... so, yeah, looks like fb can evily get around stupid TOS checks.

v0ldem0rt 8y ago

The usual Facebook move! Why are people surprised here?

sreyaNotfilc 8y ago

Goodness, why can't Facebook just be a site used to connect people together? Nothing more, nothing less. How is sharing financial information helping me to connect with my high school buddies?

calimac 8y ago

Facebook should know better that fcra of 1974 prohibits them from releasing data to third parties without Express consent from the depositor and Dodd-Frank from 2010 or 2012 prohibits the sharing of data. Facebook knows good and well that what they're asking for is illegal against a shooting regulation. That should tell you everything you need to know about Facebook Behavior

eaandkw 8y ago

And here is when everyone's insurance premiums go up. It will work kind of like shadow banning on Twitter. The rates will go up based on your past purchases. Especially now that most credit cards provide level 3 transaction details.

ladyexplainalot 8y ago

Facebook has to stay on top of competitors like WhatsApp and Instagram, which they ended up buying, and now they’re worried about competing with services like Venmo. They have to or they’ll lose marketshare. Although the market mechanism usually creates the right incentives for companies to act in their customers’ interest this could be a new type of market failure. Imposing a cost on customers that wasn’t agreed upon by reducing the cost of surveillance for hackers and governments. The "cost" is lower because the information is already collected and just needs to be obtained. So how can we fix that? Putting the data in the hands of government, where it’s probably more likely to be stolen? I assume that facebook has better cyber security than any government agency and a better incentive to keep their customers’ data secure. Or maybe breaking facebook up into multiple companies in an anti-trust litigation that will take a decade to settle? I might end up sounding like a blockchain proponent here. To be honest I think that most blockchain applications are scams or an overly complicated solution where an old fashioned data base would be totally sufficient. I actually think that blockchain technology has a very big draw back, because ownership is an important part of markets and creating the right incentives for companies. I’m very convinced that the majority of people who are working on some blockchain project don’t have a clue about what they’re talking about. I can’t claim to really understand blockchain in every detail either. My credentials are that I studied undergrad economics at Columbia and helped found a bitcoin exchange software company in 2013 and worked there until last year. So from an economics point of view, my guess is that blockchain, despite the drawback of eliminating ownership, could be a solution to this specific type of market failure. Here's a video that explores the trade off between ownership and censorship resistance in a bit more detail: https://youtu.be/pHOYORGZrps https://youtu.be/pHOYORGZrps

deleted 8y ago

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dbg31415 8y ago

This is so creepy, but expected. Banks will say they are only handing over antonimized data... and Facebook will find away to pair spending with location and de-anonymize the data —- a move the banks anticipated and agreed to all along. So shady.

guessed 8y ago

Are they trying to build something like Apple Pay?

guessed 8y ago

Could they be trying to build a payment service, something similar to PayPal or ApplePay or TenPay?

makecheck 8y ago

I think Facebook has basically reached the “do whatever we can imagine and occasionally apologize if it goes too far” phase. When software can implement ideas in a short period of time, we need laws that can work even faster. Speed up the process somehow, and “default answer: No”, or something...