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> “A lot of the focus is on changing the way that consumer-to-consumer interaction works,” said Greg Sparrow, senior vice president and general manager at Compl

> “A lot of the focus is on changing the way that consumer-to-consumer interaction works,” said Greg Sparrow, senior vice president and general manager at CompliancePoint, a data privacy and security consultancy. “While that is laudable and it’s great that they’re doing that, but fundamentally it doesn’t address the problem on the back-end side, which is businesses gaining access to this information and how they’re using it from a data monetization perspective.” Bingo. Most people on Facebook are well aware of how "public" their posts are but aren't aware of how public their personal information is to advertisers. Facebook's new "privacy" focus isn't intended to solve the platform's real privacy problem, it's intended to distract from it. Edit: Spelling

omarchowdhury 8y ago
> Most people on Facebook are well aware of how "public" their posts are but aren't aware of how public this personal information is to advertisers. How public is it, then? As a Facebook advertiser I've never seen this elusive personal information collected from the masses, available for indiscriminate pickings. Facebook only sells access to eyeballs coupled with anonymized targeting based on this personal information you refer to, not the information itself.
- visarga 8y ago
  With each click on an ad, IP address and more are leaked to the advertiser. Couple that with fine targeting, and it makes a dangerous combination.
  - omarchowdhury 8y ago
    What danger do you foresee in your thought experiments?
    - britch 8y ago
      Hi user, we noticed you've clicked on and visited a number of sites for gay bars while on vacation. Your home government in XYZ is cracking down on "immoral behavior" and has compelled us to send us a list of users who have interests like yours. Yes we know you never publicly posted about being gay or joined a group for gay men, but your internet history says differently.
      - omarchowdhury 8y ago
        Facebook has sold hundreds of billions clicks globally to advertisers, most likely trillions. Has there been one incident of the scenario you've described?
        kyboren 8y ago
        >>> What danger do you foresee in your thought experiments? >> [example foreseen danger] > Has there been one incident of the scenario you've described? Don't shift the goal posts. You asked for a foreseen danger. @britch gave an example foreseen danger. I also think the example is unfortunately realistic. I would not be surprised if in the near future repressive governments attempt to compel data brokers, pimps, and hoarders to provide information on 'undesirables'.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - bryan_w 8y ago
        Why wouldn't they just go to that users isp and get that info?
        ceejayoz 8y ago
        Do you typically use your home ISP "while on vacation"?
    - 50656E6973 8y ago
      Microtargeted mass manipulation for questionable political ends https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Methods https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Methods
    - JohnFen 8y ago
      The danger that I foresee is that additional information about me will leak to companies that I don't want it leaked to. That is sufficient all by itself, even if that information is never overtly used in a way that personally harms me.
- elliekelly 8y ago
  The average Facebook user is largely unaware of how Facebook tracks their activity far beyond what they say and do on facebook.com in order to harvest data about their personal lives: their financial situation, their relationship status, their medical history, etc. Just because you can't download a file of someone's personal information "for indiscriminate pickings" doesn't mean they aren't selling access to it. For example, someone might be gay and haven't yet told friends and family. Facebook probably knows from their browsing history. How difficult would it be for someone to run an ad on Facebook, cleverly disguised as an "article" to encourage clicks, targeting gay people in a particular region. Five minutes, tops? Well every gay person who clicks on that link has just given away their IP address and location information and the purchaser of that advertisement has a pretty accurate list of gay people and where they might be located. Hopefully they're using that list for benign purposes but who's to say? Do you think the average Facebook user is aware of how their information is leaked by simply clicking on a link in a Facebook advertisement?
  - omarchowdhury 8y ago
    You (or someone who believes the same) should actually try this experiment and see if the reality matches the expectation, to any level of (potentially) destructive accuracy.
    - sapski 8y ago
      Here's a paper that describes it, confirmed with real profiles, not just speculation: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01955327/document https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01955327/document
      - omarchowdhury 8y ago
        Thank you, I appreciate the reference. I'll take a deep look at this.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  > Facebook only sells access to eyeballs coupled with anonymized targeting based on this personal information you refer to, not the information itself. True, but that isn't a whole lot better. Surveillance companies like Facebook like to make a big deal out of this, but I don't think it means as much as they like to pretend.

omarchowdhury 8y ago

> Most people on Facebook are well aware of how "public" their posts are but aren't aware of how public this personal information is to advertisers. How public is it, then? As a Facebook advertiser I've never seen this elusive personal information collected from the masses, available for indiscriminate pickings. Facebook only sells access to eyeballs coupled with anonymized targeting based on this personal information you refer to, not the information itself.

visarga 8y ago
With each click on an ad, IP address and more are leaked to the advertiser. Couple that with fine targeting, and it makes a dangerous combination.
- omarchowdhury 8y ago
  What danger do you foresee in your thought experiments?
  - britch 8y ago
    Hi user, we noticed you've clicked on and visited a number of sites for gay bars while on vacation. Your home government in XYZ is cracking down on "immoral behavior" and has compelled us to send us a list of users who have interests like yours. Yes we know you never publicly posted about being gay or joined a group for gay men, but your internet history says differently.
    - omarchowdhury 8y ago
      Facebook has sold hundreds of billions clicks globally to advertisers, most likely trillions. Has there been one incident of the scenario you've described?
      - kyboren 8y ago
        >>> What danger do you foresee in your thought experiments? >> [example foreseen danger] > Has there been one incident of the scenario you've described? Don't shift the goal posts. You asked for a foreseen danger. @britch gave an example foreseen danger. I also think the example is unfortunately realistic. I would not be surprised if in the near future repressive governments attempt to compel data brokers, pimps, and hoarders to provide information on 'undesirables'.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - bryan_w 8y ago
      Why wouldn't they just go to that users isp and get that info?
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        Do you typically use your home ISP "while on vacation"?
  - 50656E6973 8y ago
    Microtargeted mass manipulation for questionable political ends https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Methods https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Methods
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    The danger that I foresee is that additional information about me will leak to companies that I don't want it leaked to. That is sufficient all by itself, even if that information is never overtly used in a way that personally harms me.
elliekelly 8y ago
The average Facebook user is largely unaware of how Facebook tracks their activity far beyond what they say and do on facebook.com in order to harvest data about their personal lives: their financial situation, their relationship status, their medical history, etc. Just because you can't download a file of someone's personal information "for indiscriminate pickings" doesn't mean they aren't selling access to it. For example, someone might be gay and haven't yet told friends and family. Facebook probably knows from their browsing history. How difficult would it be for someone to run an ad on Facebook, cleverly disguised as an "article" to encourage clicks, targeting gay people in a particular region. Five minutes, tops? Well every gay person who clicks on that link has just given away their IP address and location information and the purchaser of that advertisement has a pretty accurate list of gay people and where they might be located. Hopefully they're using that list for benign purposes but who's to say? Do you think the average Facebook user is aware of how their information is leaked by simply clicking on a link in a Facebook advertisement?
- omarchowdhury 8y ago
  You (or someone who believes the same) should actually try this experiment and see if the reality matches the expectation, to any level of (potentially) destructive accuracy.
  - sapski 8y ago
    Here's a paper that describes it, confirmed with real profiles, not just speculation: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01955327/document https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01955327/document
    - omarchowdhury 8y ago
      Thank you, I appreciate the reference. I'll take a deep look at this.
JohnFen 8y ago
> Facebook only sells access to eyeballs coupled with anonymized targeting based on this personal information you refer to, not the information itself. True, but that isn't a whole lot better. Surveillance companies like Facebook like to make a big deal out of this, but I don't think it means as much as they like to pretend.