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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 com

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?
    - aero142 8y ago
      They might be perfectly happy to be the dominant player in a regulated industry.
    - russdpale 8y ago
      Who is going to stop them? Twenty furrowed brows in a congressional hearing? Of course not, and facebook knows this.
      - mirimir 8y ago
        Governments have been known to shut down criminal enterprises. But maybe too many have been paid off. Time will tell. Also, at some point, you'd think that people would just stop using it. Again, time will tell.
mjevans 8y ago
In this day of easy information sharing source transparency sounds like a great tool for democracy. I am more inclined to believe that marketing spin, lawyer-approved press releases, and asymmetry of resources for vetting (reporter)/preparing (Facebook) lead to spun views for normal reasons; not to speak of other pressures and less friendly corruption that might occur.
jeromebaek 8y ago
Notice the direct quote says "don't", not "wouldn't". Obviously they "don't" at the moment, because they're probably building it right now. Doesn't mean they "wouldn't" in the future.
- arwhatever 8y ago
  We do not "wittingly" use the data for targeted ads.
- josephjrobison 8y ago
  And furthermore, “don’t” can be as of this second, but we are knowingly launching something next week that will.
downandout 8y ago
It appears that it would be opt-in, and even then, the data would not be used for ad targeting. One of the suggested ideas is that you’d be able to see your account balance and receive fraud alerts from your bank within Messenger. I would actually love a chatbot that would let me clear a debit card fraud alert, rather than having my card shutdown and being forced to call in when my usage goes up (usually when traveling). The fears here seem to be somewhat overblown and misrepresented by the article - certainly by its headline.
- briandear 8y ago
  My fraud alerts come via email. A simple click to approve or denyz No way in hell would I want Messenger to be sending me stuff from my bank.
  - downandout 8y ago
    Simple solution: don’t opt-in. But I wouldn’t mind it being an option.
calimac 8y ago
So you are saying that Facebook wants financial data for users but they're not going to use it dot-dot-dot for ad targeting I mean they're not using it right now but it doesn't say that they wouldn't use it but it doesn't even say that they're not going to maintain it and keep it and it doesn't send Annie parameters for regulations as to how they're going to be a custodian of the data they just want the data how is that
craigc 8y ago
I think it means they are open to doing it, and will be happy to do it in the future as long as they don’t get caught.
pferde 8y ago
"We're not doing X for purpose Y!" (translation: "We're doing X not for purpose Y, we do X for other purposes. Luckily, nobody thought to ask us about those, and we certainly won't mention those purposes ourselves, heh, heh, heh.") Technically, telling the truth, in a weasely way.
- chii 8y ago
  Journalists need to be asking what these companies are using X for, rather than specifics.
  - bitreality 8y ago
    It's very easy to get around those questions. Facebook is great at it. There is usually a customer-friendly reason, which is the one they answer with publicly. For example, "we collect your information to serve you content that you like". But the real reason is, "We collect your information, because your information can be sold in many ways, indirectly and directly, to make us money". Both are arguably true. But for a publicly traded company, the "Why" must always come back to the bottom line. The ultimate goal is to build value for shareholders. Any answer that doesn't include some reference to the bottom line is utter BS.
- florabuzzword 8y ago
  Freedom of the press as commonly understood in the US is a misnomer. Today we are most limited by access-based journalism. Journalist careers generally depend more on access than anything else. As such, their subjects have tremendous power if wielded smartly. PR departments are tasked with wielding this most efficiently. By being vague in the pretense of that power-wielding landed this subject the benefit of the journalist doing the last mile dirty work of being specific. The hope is that this will buy her another interview, and another interview, and so on. They (the journalist) may have another plan in mind, but their power to execute it is limited by their professional mobility and utility to the subject.
  - bogomipz 8y ago
pbreit 8y ago
Update from Facebook that sounds more reasonable. Seems like the journalists kinda bungled this one. "Facebook says it doesn’t plan to build a system to let US customers review their checking accounts; the company also claims it’s not seeking access to credit card usage data; Facebook suggests it’s interested in offering transaction alert tools and other services via Messenger; the firm already provides similar features in many other countries" https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/facebook-banking/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/facebook-banking/
- nerdponx 8y ago
  I would be surprised if signing up for those alerts didn't also constitute an "opt-in" for advertising sales based on your purchase information.
- sn41 8y ago
  As a side effect, of course we will have a profile of your purchase patterns to correlate with your social behavior. Don't worry, what could go wrong?
joshfraser 8y ago
Last I heard Facebook was working with First Data for ad-targeting insights based on purchase behavior. That partnership is what enables their advanced targeting based on in-store purchasing data (look at the CPG targeting categories available in Facebook ads, for example). While First Data is not technically a bank or credit card company that's a very misleading and disingenuous statement for Facebook to make.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
It makes perfect sense with the little bit of contextual knowledge that credit card companies sell your purchase data to whoever for whatever reason today, and I'm pretty sure Google uses buys and uses this info. So - the first sentence refers to the potential program in question i.e. FB doing some kind of financial integration. The second part I think is FB's 'furthermore' in reference to the fact they don't seem to buy data from VISA to integrate into ads. Since the later is a rather common thing, I guess they felt the need to clarify. It's funny that everyone is up in arms about FB using FB data to make ads ... when VISA, MC and AMEX basically sell all transactional data to pretty much anyone for any purpose. And this has been going on for some time and there doesn't seem to be a big fuss over it. Personally I think the sale by Visa of all your transactions is a much worse violation of privacy because it's financial info, there's no overt 'opt in' for this, and it's sold and used willy nilly for whatever. But to your point I don't think that too many people are aware that Visa is selling data so the context required for the later comment may not be obvious.
- spiritcat 8y ago
  But with Visa we can opt-out by using monero instead, what are we supposed to do with facebook?
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    .. not use Facebook? It's really not necessary.
    - ddalex 8y ago
      But if Facebook is building shadow profiles out of your data sourced through means outside control (can you not use banks?!) what's your recourse?
- ardy42 8y ago
  > It makes perfect sense with the little bit of contextual knowledge that credit card companies sell your purchase data to whoever for whatever reason today, and I'm pretty sure Google uses buys and uses this info. Any way to opt out of this?

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?
  - aero142 8y ago
    They might be perfectly happy to be the dominant player in a regulated industry.
  - russdpale 8y ago
    Who is going to stop them? Twenty furrowed brows in a congressional hearing? Of course not, and facebook knows this.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Governments have been known to shut down criminal enterprises. But maybe too many have been paid off. Time will tell. Also, at some point, you'd think that people would just stop using it. Again, time will tell.

mjevans 8y ago

In this day of easy information sharing source transparency sounds like a great tool for democracy. I am more inclined to believe that marketing spin, lawyer-approved press releases, and asymmetry of resources for vetting (reporter)/preparing (Facebook) lead to spun views for normal reasons; not to speak of other pressures and less friendly corruption that might occur.

jeromebaek 8y ago

Notice the direct quote says "don't", not "wouldn't". Obviously they "don't" at the moment, because they're probably building it right now. Doesn't mean they "wouldn't" in the future.

arwhatever 8y ago
We do not "wittingly" use the data for targeted ads.
josephjrobison 8y ago
And furthermore, “don’t” can be as of this second, but we are knowingly launching something next week that will.

downandout 8y ago

It appears that it would be opt-in, and even then, the data would not be used for ad targeting. One of the suggested ideas is that you’d be able to see your account balance and receive fraud alerts from your bank within Messenger. I would actually love a chatbot that would let me clear a debit card fraud alert, rather than having my card shutdown and being forced to call in when my usage goes up (usually when traveling). The fears here seem to be somewhat overblown and misrepresented by the article - certainly by its headline.

briandear 8y ago
My fraud alerts come via email. A simple click to approve or denyz No way in hell would I want Messenger to be sending me stuff from my bank.
- downandout 8y ago
  Simple solution: don’t opt-in. But I wouldn’t mind it being an option.

calimac 8y ago

So you are saying that Facebook wants financial data for users but they're not going to use it dot-dot-dot for ad targeting I mean they're not using it right now but it doesn't say that they wouldn't use it but it doesn't even say that they're not going to maintain it and keep it and it doesn't send Annie parameters for regulations as to how they're going to be a custodian of the data they just want the data how is that

craigc 8y ago

I think it means they are open to doing it, and will be happy to do it in the future as long as they don’t get caught.

pferde 8y ago

"We're not doing X for purpose Y!" (translation: "We're doing X not for purpose Y, we do X for other purposes. Luckily, nobody thought to ask us about those, and we certainly won't mention those purposes ourselves, heh, heh, heh.") Technically, telling the truth, in a weasely way.

chii 8y ago
Journalists need to be asking what these companies are using X for, rather than specifics.
- bitreality 8y ago
  It's very easy to get around those questions. Facebook is great at it. There is usually a customer-friendly reason, which is the one they answer with publicly. For example, "we collect your information to serve you content that you like". But the real reason is, "We collect your information, because your information can be sold in many ways, indirectly and directly, to make us money". Both are arguably true. But for a publicly traded company, the "Why" must always come back to the bottom line. The ultimate goal is to build value for shareholders. Any answer that doesn't include some reference to the bottom line is utter BS.
florabuzzword 8y ago
Freedom of the press as commonly understood in the US is a misnomer. Today we are most limited by access-based journalism. Journalist careers generally depend more on access than anything else. As such, their subjects have tremendous power if wielded smartly. PR departments are tasked with wielding this most efficiently. By being vague in the pretense of that power-wielding landed this subject the benefit of the journalist doing the last mile dirty work of being specific. The hope is that this will buy her another interview, and another interview, and so on. They (the journalist) may have another plan in mind, but their power to execute it is limited by their professional mobility and utility to the subject.
- bogomipz 8y ago

pbreit 8y ago

Update from Facebook that sounds more reasonable. Seems like the journalists kinda bungled this one. "Facebook says it doesn’t plan to build a system to let US customers review their checking accounts; the company also claims it’s not seeking access to credit card usage data; Facebook suggests it’s interested in offering transaction alert tools and other services via Messenger; the firm already provides similar features in many other countries" https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/facebook-banking/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/facebook-banking/

nerdponx 8y ago
I would be surprised if signing up for those alerts didn't also constitute an "opt-in" for advertising sales based on your purchase information.
sn41 8y ago
As a side effect, of course we will have a profile of your purchase patterns to correlate with your social behavior. Don't worry, what could go wrong?

joshfraser 8y ago

Last I heard Facebook was working with First Data for ad-targeting insights based on purchase behavior. That partnership is what enables their advanced targeting based on in-store purchasing data (look at the CPG targeting categories available in Facebook ads, for example). While First Data is not technically a bank or credit card company that's a very misleading and disingenuous statement for Facebook to make.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

It makes perfect sense with the little bit of contextual knowledge that credit card companies sell your purchase data to whoever for whatever reason today, and I'm pretty sure Google uses buys and uses this info. So - the first sentence refers to the potential program in question i.e. FB doing some kind of financial integration. The second part I think is FB's 'furthermore' in reference to the fact they don't seem to buy data from VISA to integrate into ads. Since the later is a rather common thing, I guess they felt the need to clarify. It's funny that everyone is up in arms about FB using FB data to make ads ... when VISA, MC and AMEX basically sell all transactional data to pretty much anyone for any purpose. And this has been going on for some time and there doesn't seem to be a big fuss over it. Personally I think the sale by Visa of all your transactions is a much worse violation of privacy because it's financial info, there's no overt 'opt in' for this, and it's sold and used willy nilly for whatever. But to your point I don't think that too many people are aware that Visa is selling data so the context required for the later comment may not be obvious.

spiritcat 8y ago
But with Visa we can opt-out by using monero instead, what are we supposed to do with facebook?
- lallysingh 8y ago
  .. not use Facebook? It's really not necessary.
  - ddalex 8y ago
    But if Facebook is building shadow profiles out of your data sourced through means outside control (can you not use banks?!) what's your recourse?
ardy42 8y ago
> It makes perfect sense with the little bit of contextual knowledge that credit card companies sell your purchase data to whoever for whatever reason today, and I'm pretty sure Google uses buys and uses this info. Any way to opt out of this?