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> Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., attempted to ask Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg a question about data privacy, and revealed a conception of social media rese
by rabidrat 8y ago
> Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., attempted to ask Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg a question about data privacy, and revealed a conception of social media resembling a wad of tangled Christmas lights: “Do you track devices that an individual who uses Facebook has that is connected to the device that they use for their Facebook connection, but not necessarily connected to Facebook?”
This seems like a very legitimate question. He wants to know if Facebook tracks e.g. your FitBit. It's connected to your phone, and your phone is connected to Facebook, but your FitBit isn't connected to Facebook. And to be honest, I don't know the answer to that question. I would hope that they can't, but knowing the state of the tech world (IoT: the 'S' stands for security), it's probably possible, and knowing what we know about Facebook, if it's possible they are probably doing it.
Not that Zuckerberg would necessarily know or confess to it before the Senate, but that's a separate issue (I often wonder what is the point of calling a corporate executive to DC anyway, since they have every reason to dissemble and no reason to cooperate in good faith).
- lkbm 8y ago> I often wonder what is the point of calling a corporate executive to DC anyway, since they have every reason to dissemble and no reason to cooperate in good faith Showboating, I've always assumed. A good deal of the questioning was clearly grandstanding, and a good number of the questions asked could have been answered by the Senators' grandchildren. That said, if you want to grandstand, you should first run your questions by your grandchildren so they can tell you about online advertising and such, lest you look like a fool on national television.
- k9s9 8y agoMisguided way of looking at things imho. He is bringing more attention to the question and a larger non-technical audience now is aware. I have known techies voicing issues and asking questions about Facebook practices wayback in 2008-9. You can say it took 10 years for the rest of the population to start asking the same questions. But I see it as a failure of the early warning technical crowd, who knew bad things were unfolding, to warn us faster. Whats the lesson there?
- adventured 8y agoIt's an entirely legitimate question given the connected nature of our devices and is embarrassing for the Baltimore Sun as they attempt to mock Congress for supposedly being baffled. Given the last decade of their abusive behavior I'm more inclined to believe that Facebook's own conception of social media is in fact a lot more fucked up than a tangled wad of Christmas lights.
- sulam 8y agoIf you connect your Fitbit account to Facebook for the purpose of friend-finding, Facebook may keep track of your being a Fitbit user. However, Fitbit does not connect your device to Facebook. The possible exception to this is if you have a smart watch from Fitbit and a third party app establishes such a connection. Fitbit does not act as an intermediary here and so cannot keep your information private. (Disclosure — I am a Fitbit engineer.)
- FiveSquared25 8y agoExcuse me for this curt reply, but do you have plans to support apps in the Fibit Blaze? Thanks!
- sulam 8y agoI would never say never, but I don't know of any plans to do this and it would shock me if we did. Blaze has a different OS from Ionic/Versa.
- FiveSquared25 8y agoThanks!