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Facebook accused of striking 'secret deals over user data'
- arduinomancer 8y agoOne of the leaked emails threads related to Vine: Justin Osofsky (Facebook vice president): "Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video... Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today. We've prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision." Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook chief executive): "Yup, go for it."
- x220 8y agoThis is what a monopoly looks like.
- ajkjk 8y agoIn what way?
- ucaetano 8y agoI believe OP mens abusing market power to prevent competition. Although if it is or not a monopoly and an abuse of market power is dubious, but it clearly is anti-competitive. This is similar to Amazon shutting off Google Products from any retailers using its platform. It is anti-competitive, but the jury is out on whether it is abusing market power. TL;DR: you can try to shut off your competitors from the market, as long as you're not abusing your market power to do so. PS: The Hacker News definition of monopoly has nothing to do with the economics, policy and antitrust definition of monopoly.
- twodave 8y agoHow is it anticompetitive to stop sharing data you own with another business who has taken a more competitive stance against you? It’s not like Facebook is a public service that everyone is entitled to. And I say that as someone who deleted his own account long ago. I dislike Facebook for a lot of reasons but this isn’t one of them.
- ucaetano 8y agoIt is retaliation for another business competing with you. That is literally using your market power to try to reduce competition. But taking anti-competitive actions by itself isn't necessarily an issue, but it is a problem if you're deemed to have significant market power in a defined market. Essentially: if Facebook is deemed to have significant market power, this could be a problem, if it doesn't have, then it isn't a problem. Anti-trust relies heavily on the precise definition of a market (which is a subject that Hacker News comments generally ignore when crying wolf, I mean, monopoly).
- spunker540 8y agoI don't think its anti-competitive considering they don't need to provide any third party APIs at all. Plus it's not like to create a social app you absolutely need FB login or FB data. I think if your company can't make it and you're blaming FB for not giving you enough data maybe your business model was a little too dependent on Facebook in the first place.
- ucaetano 8y ago> I don't think its anti-competitive considering they don't need to provide any third party APIs at all. Removing the access of a competitor in retaliation for them competing with you, when you give it to other players is anti-competitive by definition.
- bduerst 8y ago* Monopolistic action Facebook is still far from the textbook definition of monopoly, but this anti-competitive behavior is not good.
- jazzyjackson 8y agoquacking like a monopoly acting with the knowledge that they can stem the growth of a competitor and flipping the switch
- robertAngst 8y agoCareful, we don't want to start using the word Monopoly wrongly. When real monopolies exist and are dangerous, we need to be able to tell them apart.
- uxhack 8y agoMaybe you can try to explain why, but Adamm Smith who defined the concept of Monopoly would disagree with you. The purpose of the government is to stop firms ever being able to create one.This means before a monopoly is created.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoFacebook is unquestionably a monopoly. They have unquestionably engaged in illegal anti-competitive behavior. It isn't even subtle.
- arayh 8y agoThis seems like retaliation for Twitter blocking Instagram from using its API (after Facebook recently acquired Instagram in 2012). (Source: https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/26/3189340/twitter-blocks-instagram-friend-finding-api https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/26/3189340/twitter-blocks-in...)
- SilasX 8y agoInterestingly, I remember Google's employee training[1] was written to warn against stuff this, something to the effect of: "Hey, don't leave a papertrail about 'crushing' or 'destroying' competitors. We do not seek to monopolize markets and run afoul of antitrust laws. Instead, talk about how your product can better satisfy users and meet a demand." (Another common theme I remember was that you shouldn't route stuff through Switzerland to get around export controls.) [1] I contracted there via a startup.
- mc32 8y agoWhile true companies don't want to leave this kind of trail of actions, whether its in written form or not, ephemeral or recorded, people will have these kinds of communication. It's not like they should just ignore the competition or act via implicit understanding and winks and nods (they are not covered by anti-collusion like airline pricing is)
- dekhn 8y agoEven so, I still saw my Google manager's emails in the Oracle trial: http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/heres-mountain-of-willful-infringement.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/heres-mountain-of-willful...
- how_many_times 8y agoA quick search for the word Facebook on that website reveals an uncomfortably pro-Facebook and anti-Google stance, couched amidst lots and lots of other stuff so the pattern cannot be discerned unless someone actually does a search. If the author is truly neutral as he claims, Facebook must be a saint when it comes to patent applications, which would be completely out of character. Or the author may be sponsored by a Google competitor who just happens to be pro-Facebook. Hmm... I wonder who that company might be. Not that it makes Google's actions any better. But nowadays I doubt every single self proclaimed independent entity.
- fipple 8y agoYeah, Wall Street has much more experience in this. Whenever there would be something illegal to discuss, there’d be a phone call between our personal cell phones (company lines were recorded).
- mc32 8y agoI get it. they are the 400# gorilla and when they act competitively like this, it looks bad. However, for most competitive organizations, this would be standard procedure. You see an upstart which is using what sets you apart from others (their social graph) to compete against you, you take actions. I don't see anything extraordinary about this exchange. The data collection and selling --that's what people should be upset about and lobby against. This kind of thing is a sideshow and will only interest the most hard-core anti-FB people. To get regular folks on board with changing the culture around user data, talk about user data and privacy, concentrate on that.
- Joakal 8y agoZuckerberg said Facebook was about connecting the world. This looks like its about walling off the world?
- mc32 8y agoOk? So? We have all pivoted, changed minds and made changes because of external inputs. Maybe he had bad motives (get everyone hooked and then dump the suckers) but it's still competitive measures. It's not even illegal like dumping scooters and bikes all over a city.
- Chinjut 8y agoHow does it benefit the public to allow this kind of competition? Corporate competition exist to serve the public, and when it doesn't, we may as well make rules to force it to. Competition isn't an intrinsic good.
- a13n 8y agoThis seems extremely reasonable to me. Vine was launched in January 2013. Back then FB and Twitter were significantly more competitive than they are now. Twitter must have been terrifying to Facebook. Of course they would shut down their API access for Vine. It's a no brainer. The point of building a platform is to create more value for your users, your partners, and your own business. Not to make it easier for your competition to catch up...
- ceejayoz 8y agoThat's the sort of thing that got Microsoft deemed an abusive monopoly, isn't it? Handicapping APIs when used by competitors?
- sonnyblarney 8y agoIt's not unreasonable when you consider this in terms anticompetitiveness and related laws. Imagine if Microsoft just came along one day and literally banned any office software, including LibreOffice etc. from running on it's OSs. Imagine if Nissan bought up a bunch of gas chains in the US and refused to sell gas to ... to let's say ... GM cars. Or the electric company, which had invested in some solar panel outlays, decided to ban all other 3rd party solar panels from the grid. These things are always a little fuzzy, but they are real. Also - the lack of user clear consent is another one ie telling users that apps 'cannot extract their data' but in reality, they are selling it to Netflix. FB can legitimately explain a way a lot of issues lately, but this one is bad. I think it's far worse than the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which case they weren't really doing anything wrong, just late to maybe close off said APIs.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThe difference is that the Windows and Office are (or were) stand alone products that used no MS resources after the sale. A free online service running on hardware you don't control isn't obligated to provide free service for everyone indefinitely. Same as "No shirt, no shoes, no service". A proprietor can refuse dealings with toxic customers.
- mzs 8y agoI'm thinking about this in light of the IRA troll activity on FB & twitter during the '16 elections. They were pretty comical at times yet they seemed to fool enough people. I think it would have been near impossible for people in Saint Petersburg to fool almost anyone with short videos instead. Shame that vine was crushed.
- spullara 8y agoThey had blocked Twitter itself from searching for friends on Facebook in 2010: https://www.adweek.com/digital/twitter-facebook-friends/ https://www.adweek.com/digital/twitter-facebook-friends/
- Rotdhizon 8y agoEven with the damning information in these documents, can anyone explain what possible consequences could result from them?
- najarvg 8y agoMy 2 cents.. either threats of regulation (anticompetitive behavior) or pressure for Zuck to step down.
- EpicEng 8y agoIt's hard for.me to imagine zuck lasting another year as CEO... but what the hell do I know?
- 6nf 8y agoCan you actually force Mark out as CEO given that he’s the majority voting share holder?
- wewake 8y agoReplacing Mark is not going to change anything. The problem is not Mark, the problem is what the company's built upon and its business model.
- kodablah 8y agoSo they took one business's confidential documents from another person travelling in their country who had them as part of discovery for another lawsuit (that a CA judge asked to remain hidden)? And then they publish them for everyone? And these are the "bombshells"? Seems like normal (albeit arguably immoral) big business and would have expected worse from an internal email cache of such size. Obviously FB has nobody on their "side" but themselves, but I for damn sure am not on the UK government's side here. Comes off as look-what-we-can-do strong-arm tactics when you don't show up when they want you to. And the publishing appears to be just gloating. Shameful and I would hope others see it this way regardless of their feelings towards FB. Sadly, the less-principled masses care more about who it's targeted towards than the actions. I wonder if the CA judge will formally censure the UK government or encourage others with sealed documents in hand to not travel to places like this. Cry "exceptional circumstances" all you want, but we declare non-guilt on harsher crimes for much less egregious discovery violations than this.
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- fhbdukfrh 8y agoYou may not like the process but it is completely legal for the MP to compel the third party to turn over this information and then use parliamentary privilege to publish it. If FB has sent Zuck to talk to parliament in the first place this would not have happened. Instead he told them to get lost, and what are you gonna do about it? Well, this is it. Not sure what you mean about a formal censure. I'm not familiar with any legal mechanism for a state judge to formally object to foreign parliamentary procedure; how would that even work between a republic and a commonwealth?
- ceejayoz 8y agoI don't think anyone's alleging the UK did anything wrong. Six4Three's CEO is possibly on iffy legal grounds taking a bunch of sealed docs overseas unnecessarily and then handing them over, though.
- bluesign 8y ago"Facebook used data provided by the Israeli analytics firm Onavo to determine which other mobile apps were being downloaded and used by the public. It then used this knowledge to decide which apps to acquire or otherwise treat as a threat" What is wrong with this part?
- olefoo 8y agoHi. Let me take over your VPN provider and watch your traffic and let someone else use that data to figure out what you've been doing and get valuable competitive intelligence from data you thought you were obscuring from everyone.
- bluesign 8y agoyeah with this same logic, if I give some google/facebook/etc ads to promote my application, I am ethically in the same boat with facebook. The difference is they are not using their dominance, like for example, putting something in facebook app to check which other competitors installed on user's phones and spy.
- cortesoft 8y agoThat stood out to me, too... isn't market research a fundamental part of running a business?
- mcintyre1994 8y agoThey have a VPN called "Onavo Protect" that says it can "protect your personal info" and "secure your personal details" [0] but that actually sends all your usage data to Facebook. Obviously they'll have some must-agree-to-use agreement that says that's fine, but it's obviously not what people who download a VPN for those purposes actually expect. [0] https://www.onavo.com/ https://www.onavo.com/
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- bluesign 8y ago
- vogelke 8y agoFacebook: We can do whatever we like. UK: No, you can't. This totally works for me. If FB doesn't negotiate in good faith, strong-arm is exactly what's called for.
- chooseaname 8y agoI picture MZ screaming and hitting things because the adults won't let him do whatever he wants. I just don't see him as being the calm, cool, collected type of villain.
- taurath 8y agoEvery single day it seems like a new article comes out - maybe the problem is that Facebooks business model is destined to fail if people scrutinize what it’s actually doing.
- jessaustin 8y agoLots of us noticed that a long time ago, and that's why we don't use it.
- dqpb 8y ago> Every single day it seems like a new article comes out That's because some news organizations have invested in bringing Facebook down. If you pay attention, you'll notice those same organizations have also tested the waters with Google and Amazon, and to a lesser extent, other SV companies and the SV community itself. I barely ever use FB. I really don't care what happens to the webapp (although I do very much appreciate the open source tools they've built, such as react and pyTorch). But I am concerned that these media companies are attacking the tech community, and are basically opposed to any platform that circumvents their role as gatekeepers of information.
- zaphod4prez 8y agoUhhh, I feel like the constant stream of discoveries about Facebook's highly highly unethical behavior stands on it's own merit. Like, if you just made a list of the crap they've done, that's really enough for me to be very convincing. I don't really see why you think there's some media conspiracy (or why you seem okay with true anticompetitive behavior on FB's part but are highly concerned about companies having "opinions" on the behavior of a company in another industry entirely).
- taurath 8y agoI think like this is a theory that has a bit of truth to it, but the stories themselves should not be brushed aside. Society hasn’t yet come to grips with the amount of surveillance these ad platforms are inserting into every aspect of their lives.
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- zeko1195 8y agoFacebook needs to be replaced.
- Bucephalus355 8y agoHas anyone read Mark Zuckerberg’s emails / his style? He is a very frustrating email writer. You know that person who types out an 8 sentence email, but really the first 6-7 sentences are about how they are “just thinking about everything out loud” and “this could totally be wrong but I think that”. It’s just that, email after email.
- fipple 8y agoNo, that’s what you have to do in his position. If Zuckerberg sends out a mail like “can you get me information on how flowers are sold in China,” a SVP will delegate to a VP, a product marketing manager will fly to China, they’ll prepare a 200 page slide deck because this is “for Mark.” It’s very hard as a CEO with absolute power to participate in a conversation without dominating it and this is his best effort to do so.
- matchagaucho 8y agoIf anything, FB gave away too much to Developers early on, making it difficult to pivot to the Apple model of facilitating credit card payments and paying 70% to Developers. Hence the recurring theme of "Data Reciprocity" in the U.K. acquired docs. FB needed something, if not revenue, to justify the Developer's ongoing use of platform.
- TictacTactic 8y agoIs Hackernews being brigaded with anti-Facebook content or is it finaly Facebooks time to die? This is the 5th anti-FB post I've seen today. I would be interested if theirs any information on a big tech company rolling out a FB replacer or if Mark did something to really anger someone. From what I can tell most posts seems to be around Britain releasing information. Not trying to start a conspiracy just trying to understand why all the posts today.
- p49k 8y agoIf you read each story I think it’s pretty clear that they’re valid and notable on their own merits.
- iscrewyou 8y agoReally this. All these stories stand on their own. Together they form a narrative. Facebook is terrible because they say they are doing one thing, but they are doing something else, but really they are doing even more than something else while releasing PR pieces and thinking the public will just absorb them and absolve Facebook of their wrong-doing.
- kodablah 8y ago> Is Hackernews being brigaded with anti-Facebook content or is it finaly Facebooks time to die? IMO, neither. The media in general does have a large amount of anti-FB fervor that is substanceless (this article isn't one though the exact same link was posted already [0]). However, regardless of frequency on HN, the crowd here is too niche to affect FB's sustainability. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608658
- TwoNineA 8y ago> large amount of anti-FB fervor that is substanceless [citation needed] Cambridge Analytica? Soros? This clusterfuck? What was substanceless?
- wrkccnt 8y agoWas skimming through the report[1] and they mention “coefficient ranking” (email starting on page 49). Did some Googling and couldn’t find anything. Anyone has a brief explanation of this? [1] https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Note-by-Chair-and-selected-documents-ordered-from-Six4Three.pdf https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu...
- a13n 8y agoYou have a coefficient with each of your friends on Facebook, that represents how close you are with them, based on how much you interact with them on Facebook. Coefficient ranking is probably sorting your friends list by coefficient to show you the ones you're closest with first.
- wrkccnt 8y agoGreat! Thanks.
- clubm8 8y agoSounds flawed. What if I interact with someone a lot because they're a family member who shares dumb boomer memes and we argue? :)
- inetknght 8y agoSounds flawed, yes. But what makes you think it can't include whether or not the person is a family member as part of the coefficient calculation? And, what makes you think that the way you interact with your family is indicative of the way others do or don't interact with one or more of theirs?
- jfv 8y agoDo you still see ads? Yep.
- tristor 8y agoThat's actually exactly how the algorithm is supposed to work. Negative emotions are far more catchy. You see dumb boomer memes constantly, you constantly argue, but you're ENGAGED. Which means you're a juicy user for ad targeting.
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- mellow-lake-day 8y agoJust a reminder: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks.
- askafriend 8y agoI'd like a transcript of your conversations when you were 19. And I'd like to keep them around to bring them up over and over again out of context.
- elefanten 8y agoI agree that this being reposted in any Facebook-related thread is old and tired. But I wouldn't dismiss the episode itself as irrelevant to assessing how Zuckerberg thinks. If anything, it should be a well known bit of history and already long baked into people's opinions. And therefore it will always be "in context" when updating your opinion on Zuckerberg's (specifically) and Facebook's (broadly) trustworthiness.
- askafriend 8y agoYou don't think Zuckerberg has updated a single opinion in the 15 years since that exchange? Think about how different the world was 15 years ago. Think about how different of a person you are today versus just 4 years ago. And on top of that, I'll share my opinion on the specific incident in question: the people who volunteered their personal information into a random web form distributed by a random student they didn't know...is by all measures...stupid. A 19 year old me might have even used the words "dumb fuck". So there you go. My goal is not to defend Zuckerberg here. My goal is to defend people's right to be 19 and stupid/inexperienced. I'm also defending people's right to grow over the years.
- mellow-lake-day 8y agoBeing 19 isn't a free pass to do anything. At 19 you are old enough to vote, drive, serve in the army, etc — and old enough to understand that words have consequences and that calling people "dumb fucks" when they give you their SSN is pretty cruel. I'm not much older than 19 now, maybe you can use this conversation for your purpose.
- swozey 8y agore: Android app and them working out ways to circumvent permission request dialogs for reading SMS/call logs to build user coefficient levels (who knows what else) ’The Growth team is now exploring a path where we only request Read Call Log permission, and hold off on requesting any other permissions for now. ’Based on their initial testing, it seems this would allow us to upgrade users without subjecting them to an Android permissions dialog at all. ‘It would still be a breaking change, so users would have to click to upgrade, but no permissions dialog screen.’
- forkLding 8y agoThis can be legally interpreted in many ways: and I quote: "It is unlawful for a company to monopolize or attempt to monopolize trade, meaning a firm with market power cannot act to maintain or acquire a dominant position by excluding competitors or preventing new entry. It is important to note that it is not illegal for a company to have a monopoly, to charge “high prices,” or to try to achieve a monopoly position by aggressive methods." "It is illegal for businesses to act together in ways that can limit competition, lead to higher prices, or hinder other businesses from entering the market." - Federal Trade Commission on Anticompetitive Practices. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices And a relevant tidbit on FTC investigation into FB for user privacy: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43546100 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43546100
- resters 8y agoCriticism of Facebook fall into the following buckets: - Unethical use of UI dark patterns to make users (mostly the young and the elderly) unwittingly over-share. - Unethical design of the news feed algorithm to bias certain kinds of consumer behavior. - Unethical stewardship of private data harvested from users (this article is an example) - Abuse of market share toward anti-competitive ends. - The absence of warrant canaries on individual accounts, and compliance with questionable law enforcement requests for private data. And then the new upcoming one: - Unethical modification of the news feed algorithm to promote political views deemed favorable, and demote political views deemed unfavorable.
- tylerplz 8y agoIs anyone genuinely surprised by this? I grew up with the early days of Facebook and everyone around understood the company must be doing _something_ to provide some service to people for free. I've accepted the fact long time ago that we are the product that they have to sell to make money to give us something for free. Am I the only one feeling this way?
- malvosenior 8y agoI don't think most people are surprised and I don't think most users care. This is just the media grasping at anything it can get its hands on to attack their rival.
- ilovecaching 8y ago> https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/05/seized-cache-of-facebook-docs-raise-competition-and-consent-questions/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/05/seized-cache-of-facebook-d... "The documents were obtained by a legal discovery process by a startup that’s suing the social network in a California court in a case related to Facebook changing data access permissions back in 2014/15. The court had sealed the documents but the DCMS committee used rarely deployed parliamentary powers to obtain them from the Six4Three founder, during a business trip to London." Um, what? This is bullshit. I'm much more concerned about the misuse of government power to seize documents in court cases outside of the country of jurisdiction than I am of Facebook. Whether or not these acts of populism are genuine, governments that abuse their power are just as bad as companies that skirt the law.
- fuscy 8y agoWell I'd be worried if there's the power with no oversight to request anything from personal nudes to the Coca Cola recipe and Area 51 secrets and then have no repercussions if made public.
- ssvss 8y agoAnyone knows the status of Facebook vs Steven Vachani case, https://youtu.be/-W1B89wXJU8 https://youtu.be/-W1B89wXJU8
- cauldron 8y agoAlibaba once said it's "Data Technology" instead of IT now. Looks like FB became the scapegoat of the entire industry.
- samstave 8y agoThere seem to be so many labels we could throw: - Intent analysis - Sentiment influence - Data sculpting - Information engineering - Data engineering - Stream management - Cognition coordination blah blah blah. Labels are now the things of the commentary artists, howver, how do we regulate and police things when they are many layers of abstraction. For example, at what point do we have API exploitation police? Statutes against very specific cyber-crimes? Encapsulation policy/regulation? At what point does spoofing overlap with identity theft? What I find really interesting - and completely neglected as a source of directional inspiration - is that Anime has been dealing with these tropes and issues for decades. The writers of Anime series with such concepts in mind should be sought, encouraged, spoken-to to start thinking about such ripple effects of tech. We will have a cyber 9/11 very soon.
- ilrwbwrkhv 8y agoOk can we stop using all Facebook technology and stop this nonsense?
- fuscy 8y agoTL;DR required. I didn't quite get it from the article. Is Facebook accused of doing something illegal under the laws at the time of the action? If I were to sue them for anything, do I have any grounds?
- wewake 8y agoFrom email dated 4 February 2015 Michael LeBeau – ‘He guys, as you know all the growth team is planning on shipping a permissions update on Android at the end of this month. They are going to include the ‘read call log’ permission, which will trigger the Android permissions dialog on update, requiring users to accept the update. They will then provide an in-app opt in NUX for a feature that lets you continuously upload your SMS and call log history to Facebook to be used for improving things like PYMK, coefficient calculation, feed ranking etc. This is a pretty highrisk thing to do from a PR perspective but it appears that the growth team will charge ahead and do it.’ Yul Kwon – ‘Based on their initial testing, it seems this would allow us to upgrade users without subjecting them to an Android permissions dialog at all.'