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Random aside. It's hilarious to me how people are worried about data Facebook has on them, or freaking out about address data being leaked in a hack. Direct ma

by cm2012 6y ago

Random aside. It's hilarious to me how people are worried about data Facebook has on them, or freaking out about address data being leaked in a hack. Direct mail marketers, since the 1980s, buy lists of huge swathes of Americans. These lists include full name, address, estimated income, political affiliation, companies you've worked for - and the records are pennies each.

aembleton 6y ago
Direct mail marketers don't know how long you've spent on each Web page that you've visited.
speedgoose 6y ago
It doesn't contain the list of people I am friend with on Facebook, and people I'm very likely to be friend with, while I'm not friend on Facebook. It doesn't contain my GPS coordinates over years. It doesn't contain the list of my interests, based on my likes and the tracking of my web browsing. It doesn't contain an analysis of the conversations with my friends and family. It doesn't contain the pictures of my weekends and holidays, uploaded by other people. It doesn't contain my face. However it's still quite bad and such dataset shouldn't be available like this.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Well, it probably does _now_. Cambridge Analytica was nowhere near alone in their cross-aggregation of data.
  - makomk 6y ago
    Quite possibly. For example, the Obama campaign in 2012 used friendship and interaction data from Facebook in order to figure out which of his supporters could most effectively convince specific undecided voters they were friends with to vote for him and instructed them to do so, effectively turning your own friends into instruments of the advertising algorithm. The New York Times ran a glowing article about how clever this was and the new commercial advertising organisation they were using their techniques in: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campai...
    - addicted 6y ago
      Turning your friends into political advertisements is just a long way of saying “traditional campaigning”. Which is nothing like using Facebook data to peddle false information through ads. Facebook shouldn’t be allowing access to that kind of data in both cases, but that doesn’t mean what was done with the data is the same thing.
- cm2012 6y ago
  Facebook doesn't sell that data to anyone though, they just use it to target ads. Anyone can buy that other info from Infogroup.
  - HenryBemis 6y ago
    With the 'minor exception' of Cambridge Analytica (and whoever else was given access and FB managed to put a lid on it). So yes, FB does sell (your) data. Perhaps the trade is not "$5 per account" but they don't "just sell ads".
    - cm2012 6y ago
      CA data was not sold, nor was it likely to be valuable to anyone, contrary to public opinion.
    - verst 6y ago
      People really need to pay attention to the permissions they grant apps to their Facebook accounts. What happened was people installing a quiz app or game which requested unnecessary data access but collected profile data and then (against Terms of Service) provided this data to a third party. I don't consider this Facebook selling data. And auditing this kind of behavior is incredibly difficult. Don't install apps that request access to your data, especially if you don't understand who owns the app and what their motivations are.
      - speedgoose 6y ago
        What if a friend install such an app? It's what happened. What if a quiz app could not require so much knowledge about privacy by design? Facebook is responsible.
      - HenryBemis 6y ago
        This is why I mentioned that the sale is not (e.g.) $5 per user. But if someone has access to 1000 users' data and pays $5000 for that access, well, it's kinda the same thing. Auditing such process is a joke. No such audit will ever exist, as the results would be documented and leave a trail of misappropriation and abuse (of data). The only audits 'allowed' by the business would me the innocuous ITGCs. I invite anyone from FB with audit related experience to comment (please use a TA account and be as vague as you can to prevent tracing).
- Aperocky 6y ago
  tbh, there's an upper cap on how much information an individual is worth. Say a pretty basic personal information (address, income etc) cost a dime each person, it can get deeper and deeper until it is no longer worth any extra. 10 political opinion from this person? Interesting. Full reddit history? Maybe worth 2x the former. Facebook images? probably worthless. The point is that it quickly gets to the point where all of these information are noise and essentially worthless to an advertiser. It is completely another story when you have people with authoritarian intentions coming in though.
  - cm2012 6y ago
    The government goes straight to the ISP 90% of the time anyway for things like internet history, and to the cell phone companies for location.
    - novok 6y ago
      Centralized internet properties are probably good for foreign intelligence, but then the risk of that to people is also far less.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > It is completely another story when you have people with authoritarian intentions coming in though. The Nazi party went from ~2-3% of the vote to 37% of the vote in 4 years [0]. 5 years from 2-3% to the last election they had to contend with. If the strategy is to wait for people with authoritarian intentions to come though before getting worried about privacy it will be far to late; things can go south extremely quickly. It is advised to stop the databases being developed before it becomes obvious that someone is abusing them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Ascension_and_consolidation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Ascension_and_conso...
netcan 6y ago
>It's hilarious to me how people are worried about data Facebook has on them, or freaking out about address data being leaked in a hack. Several reasons... (1) Facebook/Alphabet have a lot more data. Leaking anything implies something about data security, which is scarier. (2) Scale. Direct marketers in the 80s did use most of the techniques digital markets use, definitely in the early stages. The scale is totally different though. I'm pretty sure my city (dublin) produces more "digital marketing" grads than all engineering specialities combined. (3) Power at Scale. Your address is not data, it's a datum. Your address, alongside lots of other data about your, alongside data about lots of other people... that's where data becomes powerful. Prediction, in advertising, is the demonstration. It's responsible for most of FB's revenue.
hef19898 6y ago
For me it is even more hilarious, that people have no problem with Google, Facebook, TikTok et al. having that data, just to name a few. An at the same time they are panicking the second something like a Corona tracing app comes out, because of government.
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  Well, google cannot yet take you to torture camps. Govs have done that many times, and they still do.
bzb3 6y ago
Wait, how the hell do they know what your political affiliation is?
- s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
  Your voter registration is public record. They build this sample data by compiling huge swaths of public records and buying private data. Your political affiliation is not the worst of it, they can have the school your child goes to, the grocery store you visit, anything. The worst really isn't the violation of privacy, it's the propaganda. Most of the time the surveys themselves were meant to push information, the questions and answers were usually loaded. Source: worked as a CATI technician, typist, and interviewer for a survey company in college.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Party registration info is widely available and its use is often unregulated: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/access-to-and-use-of-voter-registration-lists.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/access... And that's just official sources; when it's gathered via private questionnaires or inferred from other data, it's even less likely to be regulated.

by cm2012 6y ago

aembleton 6y ago

Direct mail marketers don't know how long you've spent on each Web page that you've visited.

speedgoose 6y ago

It doesn't contain the list of people I am friend with on Facebook, and people I'm very likely to be friend with, while I'm not friend on Facebook. It doesn't contain my GPS coordinates over years. It doesn't contain the list of my interests, based on my likes and the tracking of my web browsing. It doesn't contain an analysis of the conversations with my friends and family. It doesn't contain the pictures of my weekends and holidays, uploaded by other people. It doesn't contain my face. However it's still quite bad and such dataset shouldn't be available like this.

Lammy 6y ago
Well, it probably does _now_. Cambridge Analytica was nowhere near alone in their cross-aggregation of data.
- makomk 6y ago
  Quite possibly. For example, the Obama campaign in 2012 used friendship and interaction data from Facebook in order to figure out which of his supporters could most effectively convince specific undecided voters they were friends with to vote for him and instructed them to do so, effectively turning your own friends into instruments of the advertising algorithm. The New York Times ran a glowing article about how clever this was and the new commercial advertising organisation they were using their techniques in: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campai...
  - addicted 6y ago
    Turning your friends into political advertisements is just a long way of saying “traditional campaigning”. Which is nothing like using Facebook data to peddle false information through ads. Facebook shouldn’t be allowing access to that kind of data in both cases, but that doesn’t mean what was done with the data is the same thing.
cm2012 6y ago
Facebook doesn't sell that data to anyone though, they just use it to target ads. Anyone can buy that other info from Infogroup.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  With the 'minor exception' of Cambridge Analytica (and whoever else was given access and FB managed to put a lid on it). So yes, FB does sell (your) data. Perhaps the trade is not "$5 per account" but they don't "just sell ads".
  - cm2012 6y ago
    CA data was not sold, nor was it likely to be valuable to anyone, contrary to public opinion.
  - verst 6y ago
    People really need to pay attention to the permissions they grant apps to their Facebook accounts. What happened was people installing a quiz app or game which requested unnecessary data access but collected profile data and then (against Terms of Service) provided this data to a third party. I don't consider this Facebook selling data. And auditing this kind of behavior is incredibly difficult. Don't install apps that request access to your data, especially if you don't understand who owns the app and what their motivations are.
    - speedgoose 6y ago
      What if a friend install such an app? It's what happened. What if a quiz app could not require so much knowledge about privacy by design? Facebook is responsible.
    - HenryBemis 6y ago
      This is why I mentioned that the sale is not (e.g.) $5 per user. But if someone has access to 1000 users' data and pays $5000 for that access, well, it's kinda the same thing. Auditing such process is a joke. No such audit will ever exist, as the results would be documented and leave a trail of misappropriation and abuse (of data). The only audits 'allowed' by the business would me the innocuous ITGCs. I invite anyone from FB with audit related experience to comment (please use a TA account and be as vague as you can to prevent tracing).
Aperocky 6y ago
tbh, there's an upper cap on how much information an individual is worth. Say a pretty basic personal information (address, income etc) cost a dime each person, it can get deeper and deeper until it is no longer worth any extra. 10 political opinion from this person? Interesting. Full reddit history? Maybe worth 2x the former. Facebook images? probably worthless. The point is that it quickly gets to the point where all of these information are noise and essentially worthless to an advertiser. It is completely another story when you have people with authoritarian intentions coming in though.
- cm2012 6y ago
  The government goes straight to the ISP 90% of the time anyway for things like internet history, and to the cell phone companies for location.
  - novok 6y ago
    Centralized internet properties are probably good for foreign intelligence, but then the risk of that to people is also far less.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > It is completely another story when you have people with authoritarian intentions coming in though. The Nazi party went from ~2-3% of the vote to 37% of the vote in 4 years [0]. 5 years from 2-3% to the last election they had to contend with. If the strategy is to wait for people with authoritarian intentions to come though before getting worried about privacy it will be far to late; things can go south extremely quickly. It is advised to stop the databases being developed before it becomes obvious that someone is abusing them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Ascension_and_consolidation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Ascension_and_conso...

netcan 6y ago

>It's hilarious to me how people are worried about data Facebook has on them, or freaking out about address data being leaked in a hack. Several reasons... (1) Facebook/Alphabet have a lot more data. Leaking anything implies something about data security, which is scarier. (2) Scale. Direct marketers in the 80s did use most of the techniques digital markets use, definitely in the early stages. The scale is totally different though. I'm pretty sure my city (dublin) produces more "digital marketing" grads than all engineering specialities combined. (3) Power at Scale. Your address is not data, it's a datum. Your address, alongside lots of other data about your, alongside data about lots of other people... that's where data becomes powerful. Prediction, in advertising, is the demonstration. It's responsible for most of FB's revenue.

hef19898 6y ago

For me it is even more hilarious, that people have no problem with Google, Facebook, TikTok et al. having that data, just to name a few. An at the same time they are panicking the second something like a Corona tracing app comes out, because of government.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago
Well, google cannot yet take you to torture camps. Govs have done that many times, and they still do.

bzb3 6y ago

Wait, how the hell do they know what your political affiliation is?

s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
Your voter registration is public record. They build this sample data by compiling huge swaths of public records and buying private data. Your political affiliation is not the worst of it, they can have the school your child goes to, the grocery store you visit, anything. The worst really isn't the violation of privacy, it's the propaganda. Most of the time the surveys themselves were meant to push information, the questions and answers were usually loaded. Source: worked as a CATI technician, typist, and interviewer for a survey company in college.
dragonwriter 6y ago
Party registration info is widely available and its use is often unregulated: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/access-to-and-use-of-voter-registration-lists.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/access... And that's just official sources; when it's gathered via private questionnaires or inferred from other data, it's even less likely to be regulated.