6 ms·

My first reaction was: "Wow, FB finally went over the line and is actually an evil spyware distributor." Then I started thinking about what this app really is.

by zhobbs 8y ago

My first reaction was: "Wow, FB finally went over the line and is actually an evil spyware distributor." Then I started thinking about what this app really is. At $20/month per user, it's clearly impossible to recoup that money on a per-user basis via better ad targeting. This app is a market research app with a very small opt-in panel, just like having a Nielsen box on your TV. I've never felt like Nielsen's data collection is evil, so it makes me wonder if my reaction is rational. Also, looks like Nielsen has a similar program: https://computermobilepanel.nielsen.com/ https://computermobilepanel.nielsen.com/

TwoNineA 8y ago
Did you bother reading Nielsen's contract? > Be 18 years of age or older and capable of entering into a binding contract. You expressly declare that you are the owner of or lawfully exercise control over any Device onto which you authorize the downloading of the Software. Facebook's spyware was pushed to teenagers as young as 13. But yeah, same thing.
- zhobbs 8y ago
  Fair point!
joshdover 8y ago
There's a huge difference between what Nielsen does and what Facebook did. 1) Nielsen doesn't explicitly target children. 2) The data that Nielsen collects is far less intrusive than what FB collects. 3) The consumer is much more likely to be informed about the data Nielsen collects, where as with FB, it's unlikely that a user (especially a minor) understands the extent of what FB was collecting. And yes, Facebook was requiring "parental consent" to collect this data, but as we all know that is very hard to verify and children have been ticking the "I'm 13 or older" box for years without their parents knowing. What Facebook did clearly crossed a line. End of story.
- EGreg 8y ago
  I wonder what the actual effects of saying “Period! End of Story!” are in a discussion forum. Obvioisly someone is still free to respond, and then that won’t be the end of the discussion. So what’s the point of saying it? It seems to escalate the stakes basically: “if you disagree then you are a LABEL!”
  - rosstex 8y ago
    NEXT!
    - i_cant_speel 8y ago
      HN isn't the place for these kinds of comments.
      - rosstex 8y ago
        I know, I just can't help lowering the bar for a cheap shot sometimes.
  - joshdover 8y ago
    I understand your sentiment here, but the broader point here is that we as industry have been historically timid about taking hardline ethical stances. In my opinion, Facebook's behavior here is clearly wrong, and I'm going to state it as so. By taking a hardline stance, I'm opening the opportunity to prove me wrong. This is an open forum and I'm not calling anyone names for disagreeing with me. In fact if you do have a valid counterargument, PLEASE DO disagree. I'm more concerned about getting to the truth than being right. But if there isn't a counterargument, then I want my comment to stand out as a stark reminder that we should not accept or be complicit to these types of practices going forward. If we don't take these types of stances, I do not think we will change the culture in tech.
  - tathougies 8y ago
    Agreed. If the original commenter cannot make a cohesive and convincing argument as to why what happened is wrong, then they ought not to say anything. If they believe their argument is convincing, then these kinds of statements are unnecessary
strict9 8y ago
>This app is a market research app with a very small opt-in panel, just like having a Nielsen box on your TV. A television not just like your iPhone. This is in no way similar. With regard to Nielsen's mobile program they are playing by Apple's rules on privacy and FB blatantly circumvented them.
- isostatic 8y ago
  For kids, a television is a device grandpa uses > "Children watch an average of 2.8 hours of video content each day – the majority use devices other than a traditional television set to watch this. " http://www.childwise.co.uk/bits--blogs/children-are-spending-an-increasing-amount-of-time-online-but-a-growing-number-feel-lonely-and-want-to-unplug http://www.childwise.co.uk/bits--blogs/children-are-spending...
mherdeg 8y ago
Yeah I mean it's mostly interesting to see that at $0/mo Onavo was a fantastic deal for FB and they are willing to pay users at least $20/mo for the same quality data. I wonder what price this instrumentation is worth to them if $20/mo and PR risk was okay -- like, what is the upper bound on good quality iOS Onavo data? Seemed like the WSJ described this tool pretty well [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-media-firm-inside-peek-at-rivals-users-1502622003 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-me... ] -- reportedly Facebook employees can just plug in "Snapchat" into the Onavo metrics and see "we estimate [XX] MAU, declining [Y%] year over year and [Z%] month over month", and they can use this info to short/long SNAP or to prioritize building/buying a competitor. Such a great idea. I am confused that the Google product which also says it can collect usage data from 13-17 year olds [ https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/7566134 https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/756613... , https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/7573812 https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/757381... ] is still allowed by Apple. Maybe Facebook is just learning for the first time that Apple's control over what applications can be installed is arbitrary and capricious at best? I do feel bad for whatever PM in Facebook (on Project Atlas or whatever) has been watching this news for the past few days and saying "whoa, this seems disproportionately unfair, given that Google and others do the same thing on iOS". I'm just wildly speculating here but that project team is probably getting a firsthand lesson in the "New York Times test" rule: if what you are doing were published on the front page of the NYT, would you regret it? (This is a particularly rough area because I think a lot of current employees probably feel like the NYT and peers have some kind of vendetta against them and probably don't really understand the hostility.)
- rhizome 8y ago
  >I wonder what price this instrumentation is worth to them if $20/mo and PR risk was okay Legitimate market research focus groups pay $100-200/hr, or more, to regular people for verbal approximations of their own behavior.
bobince 8y ago
> I've never felt like Nielsen's data collection is evil They've definitely crossed the line in the past. For example around 2005 they were stealth-installing NetRatings spyware bundled with file-sharing apps. (And similarly with comScore. It's probably best not to use these organisations as examples of good practice.)

by zhobbs 8y ago

TwoNineA 8y ago

Did you bother reading Nielsen's contract? > Be 18 years of age or older and capable of entering into a binding contract. You expressly declare that you are the owner of or lawfully exercise control over any Device onto which you authorize the downloading of the Software. Facebook's spyware was pushed to teenagers as young as 13. But yeah, same thing.

zhobbs 8y ago
Fair point!

joshdover 8y ago

There's a huge difference between what Nielsen does and what Facebook did. 1) Nielsen doesn't explicitly target children. 2) The data that Nielsen collects is far less intrusive than what FB collects. 3) The consumer is much more likely to be informed about the data Nielsen collects, where as with FB, it's unlikely that a user (especially a minor) understands the extent of what FB was collecting. And yes, Facebook was requiring "parental consent" to collect this data, but as we all know that is very hard to verify and children have been ticking the "I'm 13 or older" box for years without their parents knowing. What Facebook did clearly crossed a line. End of story.

EGreg 8y ago
I wonder what the actual effects of saying “Period! End of Story!” are in a discussion forum. Obvioisly someone is still free to respond, and then that won’t be the end of the discussion. So what’s the point of saying it? It seems to escalate the stakes basically: “if you disagree then you are a LABEL!”
- rosstex 8y ago
  NEXT!
  - i_cant_speel 8y ago
    HN isn't the place for these kinds of comments.
    - rosstex 8y ago
      I know, I just can't help lowering the bar for a cheap shot sometimes.
- joshdover 8y ago
  I understand your sentiment here, but the broader point here is that we as industry have been historically timid about taking hardline ethical stances. In my opinion, Facebook's behavior here is clearly wrong, and I'm going to state it as so. By taking a hardline stance, I'm opening the opportunity to prove me wrong. This is an open forum and I'm not calling anyone names for disagreeing with me. In fact if you do have a valid counterargument, PLEASE DO disagree. I'm more concerned about getting to the truth than being right. But if there isn't a counterargument, then I want my comment to stand out as a stark reminder that we should not accept or be complicit to these types of practices going forward. If we don't take these types of stances, I do not think we will change the culture in tech.
- tathougies 8y ago
  Agreed. If the original commenter cannot make a cohesive and convincing argument as to why what happened is wrong, then they ought not to say anything. If they believe their argument is convincing, then these kinds of statements are unnecessary

strict9 8y ago

>This app is a market research app with a very small opt-in panel, just like having a Nielsen box on your TV. A television not just like your iPhone. This is in no way similar. With regard to Nielsen's mobile program they are playing by Apple's rules on privacy and FB blatantly circumvented them.

isostatic 8y ago
For kids, a television is a device grandpa uses > "Children watch an average of 2.8 hours of video content each day – the majority use devices other than a traditional television set to watch this. " http://www.childwise.co.uk/bits--blogs/children-are-spending-an-increasing-amount-of-time-online-but-a-growing-number-feel-lonely-and-want-to-unplug http://www.childwise.co.uk/bits--blogs/children-are-spending...

mherdeg 8y ago

Yeah I mean it's mostly interesting to see that at $0/mo Onavo was a fantastic deal for FB and they are willing to pay users at least $20/mo for the same quality data. I wonder what price this instrumentation is worth to them if $20/mo and PR risk was okay -- like, what is the upper bound on good quality iOS Onavo data? Seemed like the WSJ described this tool pretty well [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-media-firm-inside-peek-at-rivals-users-1502622003 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-me... ] -- reportedly Facebook employees can just plug in "Snapchat" into the Onavo metrics and see "we estimate [XX] MAU, declining [Y%] year over year and [Z%] month over month", and they can use this info to short/long SNAP or to prioritize building/buying a competitor. Such a great idea. I am confused that the Google product which also says it can collect usage data from 13-17 year olds [ https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/7566134 https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/756613... , https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/7573812 https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/757381... ] is still allowed by Apple. Maybe Facebook is just learning for the first time that Apple's control over what applications can be installed is arbitrary and capricious at best? I do feel bad for whatever PM in Facebook (on Project Atlas or whatever) has been watching this news for the past few days and saying "whoa, this seems disproportionately unfair, given that Google and others do the same thing on iOS". I'm just wildly speculating here but that project team is probably getting a firsthand lesson in the "New York Times test" rule: if what you are doing were published on the front page of the NYT, would you regret it? (This is a particularly rough area because I think a lot of current employees probably feel like the NYT and peers have some kind of vendetta against them and probably don't really understand the hostility.)

rhizome 8y ago
>I wonder what price this instrumentation is worth to them if $20/mo and PR risk was okay Legitimate market research focus groups pay $100-200/hr, or more, to regular people for verbal approximations of their own behavior.

bobince 8y ago

> I've never felt like Nielsen's data collection is evil They've definitely crossed the line in the past. For example around 2005 they were stealth-installing NetRatings spyware bundled with file-sharing apps. (And similarly with comScore. It's probably best not to use these organisations as examples of good practice.)