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Facebook sues two Chrome extension devs for scraping user data
- xupybd 6y agoWhile I get why they are doing this, there is a certain amount of irony here. Facebook fighting to prevent the collection of users data. It made me laugh a little
- itslennysfault 6y agoAgreed. EXTRA funny since facebook was originally entirely powered by data scraped from harvard student directory.
- echelon 6y agoBreak the rules until you're big enough to make them. Obviously this doesn't prevent you from breaking other rules. Actually, once you make it into the big leagues, you can now afford to break more rules than ever before.
- asiando 6y agoEveryone trying to be funny here except that you’re all missing the point. That data was public in the first place. These extensions can scrape anything, including your messages.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- warent 6y agoIf that's true then there should be precedence here with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn I think, right?
- johannes1234321 6y agoAlso in early times they gave quite open access to the data via API, so that everybody ties to them and everybody uploads data. Once they were big they reduced the APIs and monopolized the data they collected. (Not giving broad access via API is a good thing, see discussions around Cambridge Analytica and others)
- tomaszs 6y agoEven more funny since fb also scraped data from email accounts by misleading to obtain logins and passwords and spammed people.
- paxys 6y agoFacebook is not suing them for stealing users' data, they are suing them for stealing THEIR data.
- isatty 6y agoWell, _they_ want your data and they want to sell it for profit or make use of it in a profitable venture I imagine. They don't want anyone else getting it for free.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tomc1985 6y agoLike a mob boss sending goon squads to defend their turf
- HeyZuess 6y ago> demanding that they delete all Facebook data in their possession I know "Facebook data" is not quoted, but I gather that is the way they feel about it, they aren't protecting the user and the user's data, they are protecting themselves and their data!
- wtfrmyinitials 6y agoEvery day the browser becomes less of a User-Agent and more of a Vendor-Agent
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y agoMalicious browser extensions are a very serious problem though. The user has almost no way to know if their data is being stolen.
- OpticalWindows 6y agoIt's malicious actors all of the way down /s
- im3w1l 6y agoBut they do. It's called installing reputable extensions and software. Anything non-reputable is stealing all your data with decent probability.
- canofbars 6y agoWhat is reputable? So many once reputable extensions get sold to malware makers for huge sums of money so you not only have to find someone who will not add malware, but someone who will reject $1M purely on ethics.
- antonzabirko 6y agoLol
- reustle 6y agoThe developer indeed looks pretty shady. Weird screenshot security certificates and knockoff drop-shipped electronics, on top of their plethora of browser extensions and desktop apps. They seem to be based in Portugal. https://www.oinkandstuff.com/2019/04/10/%f0%9f%90%97-oinkandstuff-certified-as-100-free-of-malware-%f0%9f%90%9e-by-softpedia-labs-%f0%9f%94%ac/ https://www.oinkandstuff.com/2019/04/10/%f0%9f%90%97-oinkand... https://www.oinkandstuff.com/shop/ https://www.oinkandstuff.com/shop/
- wavefunction 6y agoSounds like it's perfect for Facebook, land of the MLM and foreign and domestic propaganda campaigns.
- f430 6y agowhew. glad I sold early. I knew Zuck wouldnt allow it forever. I expect linkedin to follow suit. Remember kids, when you scrape FANG, always use prepaid cards, tor + vpn. You might as well be up against a state actor.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y agoInteresting, now Facebook is trying to portray themselves as some sort of legal watchdog over users' data, suing weak, non-customer defendants at random. No doubt they'll be citing this as evidence of their benevolent corporate mission in the next round of regulatory actions against the company. https://about.fb.com/news/tag/legal-action/ https://about.fb.com/news/tag/legal-action/ Users' data is Facebook's main asset. They created the danger posed by these defendants by intentionally collecting user data on such a massive scale. They're not protecting users, they are protecting their business of creating pools of similarly situated users for advertisers to target. Facebook will never protect users from advertisers. They will not sue their own customers. At least with these defendants one can get a rough idea of what they were trying to do, the methods they were using to collect data. With Facebook, the internal operations of the company, how they solicit, collect and use people's data, is deliberately withheld from public scrutiny. "We're using your data to make our service better." For whom? Their customers, which may include political campaigns. Facebook is free. The user is not the customer. "We cannot reveal what we are doing because that would put us at a competitive disadvantage." Obviously they are doing much more than just storing your data and making it available to your friends list. You are not the customer.
- skybrian 6y agoYou should have noticed by now that there is widespread, emphatic agreement that Facebook should protect users' data from third parties. This is why what Cambridge Analytics did was bad, right?
- CivBase 6y agoI don't understand this, though. It seems to be driven by a misunderstanding of how the data is being collected in the first place. It isn't some security vulnerability with Facebook. And Facebook isn't distributing the data to a third party. It's just sharing the data with users, who are then passing it off to the third party (intentionally or otherwise). It's like expecting keyboard manufacturers to sue developers of keylogging software.
- wp381640 6y ago
- closetnerd 6y agoAny sincere effort to change the narrative/direction hopefully won't be met w/ criticism. However they should understand that it's a long path to making people believe it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoWhat?
- jsnell 6y agoNote that this is different from the last time Facebook sued two Chrome extension developers for scraping, three months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24661891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24661891
- dukeofdoom 6y agoJust uninstalled whatsapp, because I got a warning that facebook which owns whatsapp was about to scrape even more data. I'm not sure who forced them to issue that warning. But thanks!
- dbetteridge 6y agoIs this thread being botspammed? Seems to be a bunch of comments that look like they've been generated with some kind of GPT3 type setup, almost sensical and somewhat related.
- tadfisher 6y agoIf you could link what you're referring to, it would help us in responding. What I'm reading could charitably be considered related and written by a human.
- dbetteridge 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=25785121&goto=item%3Fid%3D25784168%2325785121 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=25785121&goto=item%3Fi... https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=25785030&goto=item%3Fid%3D25784168%2325785030 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=25785030&goto=item%3Fi... Were the ones I saw, re reading them a few times I could see them as being human written. Maybe just someone in a hurry to post.
- bordercases 6y agoYou are poisoning the well. One of those accounts is old and the other is active.
- alisonkisk 6y agoJust low quality human comments we always see on FAANG posts.
- bquest2 6y agoOf course this thread is being botspammed. Bad actors hate when you talk about punishments for their actions.
- cartercole 6y agooof glad i didnt implement my plan to do this...
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoSo, my understanding is that Facebook happily scrapes users' contact lists from their app. How exactly is that legal, and this not? The most obvious difference is that Facebook likely claims users are informed of Facebook's scraping, but I'm sceptical of the number of people who actually understood that. If these extensions said in their ToS that they did this, would it be okay?
- rush340 6y agoYep, lying about it is why they're being sued: "They misled users into installing the extensions with a privacy policy that claimed they did not collect any personal information."
- seanwilson 6y ago> Four of their extensions — Web for Instagram plus DM, Blue Messenger, Emoji keyboard and Green Messenger were malicious and contained hidden computer code that functioned like spyware. Headline is missing context. I run a Chrome extension that's a non-spyware web crawler so I appreciate the distinction that they're not just going after any scraping tool.
- sjg007 6y agoThese lawsuits are interesting. It raises questions about who owns what data. FB says your data is yours but then if I share with or tag someone, do they then get a right to that data? I'm not sure they are alleging copyright infringement. It's not clear to me what the law is here or what the law should be.
- MetalGuru 6y agoDidn’t LinkedIn do the same thing and lose?
- ecnahc515 6y agoReminds of the recent greatsuspender issue that's been going on recently (https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/issues/1263 https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/issues/1...)
- niczem 6y agoI just wrote a fb scraper, using a headless browser: https://github.com/niczem/trawler https://github.com/niczem/trawler Still a d*ckmove from FB, especially considering that a browser plugin can not really be used to scale up. Anyway, looking forward to hear from FB :)
- willxinc 6y agoYou won't be sued (I'm not a lawyer) as long as you're not breaking and ToC, or misleading users into using it and sending you their data. That's the reason the actor in the article is being sued, not because they're scraping, but because it was sending it to a 3rd party without consent or knowledge.
- niczem 6y ago... that actually seems pretty legit^^
- sellyme 6y ago> You won't be sued (I'm not a lawyer) as long as you're not breaking and ToC, or misleading users into using it and sending you their data. You can probably mislead them all you want in most jurisdictions. After all, that's what Facebook is already doing - how many of its billion+ users do you think are fully aware of how much external data Facebook gets access to? Outright lying on the other hand, that's what's going to get you in trouble: > a privacy policy that claimed they did not collect any personal information
- zarkov99 6y ago"We are seeking a permanent injunction against defendants and demanding that they delete all Facebook data in their possession" Facebook data. Not user data. That pretty much sums it up.
- Shish2k 6y agoIf it was phrased as “user's data”, then couldn’t the app developer get the case thrown out on the basis of “we haven’t taken facebook's data, therefore facebook has no right to sue us”?
- zarkov99 6y agoNo, I think it was pretty much a Freudian slip. They caught themselves in the next paragraph: " This case is the result of our ongoing international efforts to detect and enforce against those who scrape Facebook users’ data"
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoI found myself needing a facebook for the first time in about 10 years (I deleted my facebook a long time ago). So I decided to sign up using a fake email and a fake name. I was extremely shocked to learn that facebook requires you to upload a real picture of yourself in order to use the service[1]! I tried several times creating new accounts. Each time the account was locked and it required 1.) my phone number and 2.) a real picture of myself. Why would this ever be a requirement for using social media? 1. https://imgur.com/KvsPiFY https://imgur.com/KvsPiFY
- slater 6y agojust feed it some thispersondoesnotexist fake person image...?
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoI actually did upload something that was basically a deepfake. My account is still locked while they "verify" it. Really bizarre.
- MertsA 6y ago>So I decided to sign up using a fake email and a fake name. Facebook requires you to use your real name when creating an account. >I was extremely shocked to learn that facebook requires you to upload a real picture of yourself in order to use the service[1]! Nope, Facebook requires you to upload a real picture because you got caught creating fake accounts. You know who else uses fake names and emails and creates multiple accounts once the previous one runs into a checkpoint once it appears to be fake? Scammers and bots. Use your real name, and then lock down your privacy settings to where only your friends can see info about you. It'd be annoying to your friends trying to remember who "John Smith" actually was all the time anyways.
- dev_by_day 6y agoIt's never to late to do the right thing, FB has fucked up in the past but calling out software that is doing harmful data collection of their users is what they should do here.