4 ms·

"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

"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 ago
Hi. 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 ago
  yeah 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 ago
That stood out to me, too... isn't market research a fundamental part of running a business?
mcintyre1994 8y ago
They 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/
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bluesign 8y ago
  yeah but in the documents, it is just market research data, if I want to acquire one application, and let's say use appannie[0] to check how popular it is, what is different essentially? [0] https://www.appannie.com/ https://www.appannie.com/
  - bduerst 8y ago
    I asked the same question yesterday and it seems that FB acquired Onavo. They joined this data with the rest of their user data, and then used it to make anti-competitive decisions. It'd be like if Apple bought Appannie, matched the behavior with their existing customer database, and then used the data to delist Spotify from their app store because it competes with iTunes.
    - mattnewton 8y ago
      That’s messed up sure, and I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think how they got the information to act in an anticompetitive way is relevant, in the US at least (as long as it was legal, which buying up smaller companies is). Am I missing something? Is it fraud because they continued to market the vpn service as being private while they used it to collect market research data for facebook?
      - bduerst 8y ago
        I think that maybe it's because Onavo acquired the information with a specific agreement with it's users, which didn't cover the way Facebook used it after FB acquired the agency, but then again, I'm not sure. SOP for these situations is to license the data from the agency, so you can say that you're using third-party data which is also available to your competition. Level playing field and all that. Acquiring the entire company is a risk because it closes it off to competition and isn't necessary to just use the data.
msiyer 8y ago
Actually nothing wrong at all. Organizations also become kind-of living entities and self-preservation becomes paramount. Nature maintains balance because it is not invested in the future of any species in particular. Nature cannot be manipulated emotionally. No psychological tricks work. Society is supposed to play the same role. However, society delegates this responsibility to an elected few. Neither the society nor the elected few are immune from manipulation at different levels. Summary: The governing system has to be unemotional, like Nature. In such a system, anti-competitive (or any other type) behaviors may yield results in short-term, but over a period of time, such a system becomes a great leveler. For example, even with all our progress and monopoly over earth's resources, we are just one great flood away from going back to stone age.

olefoo 8y ago

Hi. 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 ago
yeah 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 ago

That stood out to me, too... isn't market research a fundamental part of running a business?

mcintyre1994 8y ago

They 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/

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bluesign 8y ago
yeah but in the documents, it is just market research data, if I want to acquire one application, and let's say use appannie[0] to check how popular it is, what is different essentially? [0] https://www.appannie.com/ https://www.appannie.com/
- bduerst 8y ago
  I asked the same question yesterday and it seems that FB acquired Onavo. They joined this data with the rest of their user data, and then used it to make anti-competitive decisions. It'd be like if Apple bought Appannie, matched the behavior with their existing customer database, and then used the data to delist Spotify from their app store because it competes with iTunes.
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    That’s messed up sure, and I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think how they got the information to act in an anticompetitive way is relevant, in the US at least (as long as it was legal, which buying up smaller companies is). Am I missing something? Is it fraud because they continued to market the vpn service as being private while they used it to collect market research data for facebook?
    - bduerst 8y ago
      I think that maybe it's because Onavo acquired the information with a specific agreement with it's users, which didn't cover the way Facebook used it after FB acquired the agency, but then again, I'm not sure. SOP for these situations is to license the data from the agency, so you can say that you're using third-party data which is also available to your competition. Level playing field and all that. Acquiring the entire company is a risk because it closes it off to competition and isn't necessary to just use the data.

msiyer 8y ago

Actually nothing wrong at all. Organizations also become kind-of living entities and self-preservation becomes paramount. Nature maintains balance because it is not invested in the future of any species in particular. Nature cannot be manipulated emotionally. No psychological tricks work. Society is supposed to play the same role. However, society delegates this responsibility to an elected few. Neither the society nor the elected few are immune from manipulation at different levels. Summary: The governing system has to be unemotional, like Nature. In such a system, anti-competitive (or any other type) behaviors may yield results in short-term, but over a period of time, such a system becomes a great leveler. For example, even with all our progress and monopoly over earth's resources, we are just one great flood away from going back to stone age.