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Ok, so those partnerships were basically allowing Samsung and others to build Facebook app on their phones (i.e. allowing alternative client). Would this means

by mic47 8y ago

Ok, so those partnerships were basically allowing Samsung and others to build Facebook app on their phones (i.e. allowing alternative client). Would this means that it will be criminal to allow companies to create alternative clients? That is really interesting development.

jxdxbx 8y ago
Individually negotiated confidential deals are not the same as open APIs and protocols which is where alternative clients normally come into play. And the “alternative client” stuff doesn’t even apply to Amazon, Bing etc
- makomk 8y ago
  Ironically, the whole point of having individual deals rather than an API open to everyone seems to have been ensuring the companies didn't do anything dodgy with people's data. Then the New York Times spun Facebook's approval process as them giving those companies special access to users' data, even when that data never left the end user devices, and now this has apparently lead to a criminal investigation.
  - untog 8y ago
    > even when that data never left the end user devices Do we know that to be true? In any case, I'm pretty sure they don't bring criminal cases like this frivolously. There's obviously something here.
    - makomk 8y ago
      You see the scary descriptions and illustrations of how much information was shared with the Blackberry Hub app in the previous New York Times article about this at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/fa...? Well, their reporters got that information by sniffing the network traffic from the app. They knew exactly where the data was going, and clearly they didn't see it going to Blackberry's servers or that'd be right in paragraph one of the article.
      - untog 8y ago
        Presumably Blackberry is using an access token to fetch that data, I can't see any reason why they couldn't also store that access token server side and query data without it ever appearing in device logs.
        bryan_w 8y ago
        The same could be said for mail.app sending your Gmail password to Apple, but it would be rather unlikely.
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    >>Ironically, the whole point of having individual deals rather than an API open to everyone seems to have been ensuring the companies didn't do anything dodgy with people's data. They were not charged for special API access? Still, FB might have used this as a negotiating tool as they dealt with Apple, Microsoft etc etc
donohoe 8y ago
Eh, no. Dig deeper.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't be rude and please don't post unsubstantive comments here. When another comment is wrong, please explain why so we can all learn. Alternatively, it's always an option not to post. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
sintaxi 8y ago
My guess would be data harvesting to FB without the app installed.
nradov 8y ago
Samsung devices shipped with the same Facebook client app as on the Google Play store, it wasn't an alternative. The back end data access was through other means.
- mic47 8y ago
  Not all samsung devices had android at that time.
IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
No, of course not. Why would I you ask this? It seems like Facebook somehow gave these partners rather deep access. To all users, not just those using those phones or who opted into the arrangement.
- mic47 8y ago
  Mostly, because article is mashup of random data things about Facebook, and it's not clear what is being investigated. They started that phone makers data deals are being investigated (which is basically alternative client), then goes into Cambridge Analytica, and mention Bing data access in the end (which could be about deep access you are talking about, but it does not looks like it's being investigated). And for phone deals, criticizing friends/deep data access... If you want to build alternative FB client, your phone have to have access not just to your data, but also to your fiends data (i.e. all data you have access), in order to provide any useful service. So yes, technically your friends didn't agree that your alternative FB app can access to their data, but you gave your access credentials (and permissions) to access that data to your phone.

by mic47 8y ago

jxdxbx 8y ago

Individually negotiated confidential deals are not the same as open APIs and protocols which is where alternative clients normally come into play. And the “alternative client” stuff doesn’t even apply to Amazon, Bing etc

makomk 8y ago
Ironically, the whole point of having individual deals rather than an API open to everyone seems to have been ensuring the companies didn't do anything dodgy with people's data. Then the New York Times spun Facebook's approval process as them giving those companies special access to users' data, even when that data never left the end user devices, and now this has apparently lead to a criminal investigation.
- untog 8y ago
  > even when that data never left the end user devices Do we know that to be true? In any case, I'm pretty sure they don't bring criminal cases like this frivolously. There's obviously something here.
  - makomk 8y ago
    You see the scary descriptions and illustrations of how much information was shared with the Blackberry Hub app in the previous New York Times article about this at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/fa...? Well, their reporters got that information by sniffing the network traffic from the app. They knew exactly where the data was going, and clearly they didn't see it going to Blackberry's servers or that'd be right in paragraph one of the article.
    - untog 8y ago
      Presumably Blackberry is using an access token to fetch that data, I can't see any reason why they couldn't also store that access token server side and query data without it ever appearing in device logs.
      - bryan_w 8y ago
        The same could be said for mail.app sending your Gmail password to Apple, but it would be rather unlikely.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  >>Ironically, the whole point of having individual deals rather than an API open to everyone seems to have been ensuring the companies didn't do anything dodgy with people's data. They were not charged for special API access? Still, FB might have used this as a negotiating tool as they dealt with Apple, Microsoft etc etc

donohoe 8y ago

Eh, no. Dig deeper.

dang 8y ago
Please don't be rude and please don't post unsubstantive comments here. When another comment is wrong, please explain why so we can all learn. Alternatively, it's always an option not to post. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

sintaxi 8y ago

My guess would be data harvesting to FB without the app installed.

nradov 8y ago

Samsung devices shipped with the same Facebook client app as on the Google Play store, it wasn't an alternative. The back end data access was through other means.

mic47 8y ago
Not all samsung devices had android at that time.

IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago

No, of course not. Why would I you ask this? It seems like Facebook somehow gave these partners rather deep access. To all users, not just those using those phones or who opted into the arrangement.

mic47 8y ago
Mostly, because article is mashup of random data things about Facebook, and it's not clear what is being investigated. They started that phone makers data deals are being investigated (which is basically alternative client), then goes into Cambridge Analytica, and mention Bing data access in the end (which could be about deep access you are talking about, but it does not looks like it's being investigated). And for phone deals, criticizing friends/deep data access... If you want to build alternative FB client, your phone have to have access not just to your data, but also to your fiends data (i.e. all data you have access), in order to provide any useful service. So yes, technically your friends didn't agree that your alternative FB app can access to their data, but you gave your access credentials (and permissions) to access that data to your phone.