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haha, that's a good point, but in this case I think it's more trivial than that: she probably shared her contact book with FB or Insta (still, not her fault imh

haha, that's a good point, but in this case I think it's more trivial than that: she probably shared her contact book with FB or Insta (still, not her fault imho). But, at the same time I've worked with FB SDK which was just one big shit show. It's hard even to describe it without turning a comment into an essay, so I'll pick the two I found somewhat amusing: sending data to FB before the developer could pass user consent (or thereof), sending hashes of the (non-FB) libraries installed on your phone to FB servers. Minor tangent: The best thing about the web is that user agents are still pretty good at fighting some of the tracking practices (ETP/ITP, cross origin security, etc...). It's actually quite impressive. Then, native is just one big black hole. This is why the current browser changes, although positive overall (less $$ from 3p tracking), are a double edged sword (pushing people towards walled gardens).

krrrh 6y ago
It’s almost certainly just the phone number. Recently Instagram told me that a former business partner of mine had joined and I was surprised to learn that his account was an hair braiding service in Atlanta for women with African lineage (we’re both Canadian men with European ancestors). We figured out that years ago we had taken a business trip there and picked up temporary SIM cards back when Canadian cell phone plans charged injurious roaming fees. I still had that phone number in my contacts for him when I joined Instagram, and it had finally been recycled and used to create an account. It’s a cool thought experiment for nerds and paranoiacs to imagine how you might use relative wi-fi strengths, bluetooth beacons and complex interaction patterns, but it’s less sophisticated than that.
- rpastuszak 6y ago
  Yeah, my first thought reading the parent comment was two words: "Occam's razor". But, I still find it amusing that companies like FB want to project the image of "informed consent" whereas we have a bunch of developers here trying to figure out what the hell happened and coming up with plausible solutions. What's interesting thought (and I know that from my professional experience in ad tech) is that the "cookiegeddon" did push companies towards non-deterministic, more fuzzy ways of cross-device targeting (and we're talking about people who already think that fingerprinting is ethical). The upside is that metrics are mostly bullshit anyway.
- smhost 6y ago
  > It's almost certainly this one thing, and not the other thing. No, they dragnet every possible identifier and dump everything into a pattern recognizer.
- anonymouse008 6y ago
  > It’s a cool thought experiment for nerds and paranoiacs to imagine how you might use relative wi-fi strengths I'm honored to be called a nerd on HN... I'll ignore the latter ;) Though while I agree the phone number is absolutely used, I don't think it's the only. Trying to get out ahead of the public's changing privacy tastes is a must for any advertiser that collects social-graph-like data. So strategically, if FB is not doing this, I would pull any FB investments because they aren't trying to do their job.
clort 6y ago
is it even legal for a therapist to share their clients contact details with a third party? certainly I would expect that a person who works as a therapist would be aware that the concept of client confidentiality exists and that they should not share their clients details
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  It's not like Facebook is being transparent with what data they collect and how it's going to be used. Furthermore they don't understand the concept of "no" and will keep asking, hoping to catch you off-guard as you press the wrong button and give them access.

krrrh 6y ago

It’s almost certainly just the phone number. Recently Instagram told me that a former business partner of mine had joined and I was surprised to learn that his account was an hair braiding service in Atlanta for women with African lineage (we’re both Canadian men with European ancestors). We figured out that years ago we had taken a business trip there and picked up temporary SIM cards back when Canadian cell phone plans charged injurious roaming fees. I still had that phone number in my contacts for him when I joined Instagram, and it had finally been recycled and used to create an account. It’s a cool thought experiment for nerds and paranoiacs to imagine how you might use relative wi-fi strengths, bluetooth beacons and complex interaction patterns, but it’s less sophisticated than that.

rpastuszak 6y ago
Yeah, my first thought reading the parent comment was two words: "Occam's razor". But, I still find it amusing that companies like FB want to project the image of "informed consent" whereas we have a bunch of developers here trying to figure out what the hell happened and coming up with plausible solutions. What's interesting thought (and I know that from my professional experience in ad tech) is that the "cookiegeddon" did push companies towards non-deterministic, more fuzzy ways of cross-device targeting (and we're talking about people who already think that fingerprinting is ethical). The upside is that metrics are mostly bullshit anyway.
smhost 6y ago
> It's almost certainly this one thing, and not the other thing. No, they dragnet every possible identifier and dump everything into a pattern recognizer.
anonymouse008 6y ago
> It’s a cool thought experiment for nerds and paranoiacs to imagine how you might use relative wi-fi strengths I'm honored to be called a nerd on HN... I'll ignore the latter ;) Though while I agree the phone number is absolutely used, I don't think it's the only. Trying to get out ahead of the public's changing privacy tastes is a must for any advertiser that collects social-graph-like data. So strategically, if FB is not doing this, I would pull any FB investments because they aren't trying to do their job.

clort 6y ago

is it even legal for a therapist to share their clients contact details with a third party? certainly I would expect that a person who works as a therapist would be aware that the concept of client confidentiality exists and that they should not share their clients details

Nextgrid 6y ago
It's not like Facebook is being transparent with what data they collect and how it's going to be used. Furthermore they don't understand the concept of "no" and will keep asking, hoping to catch you off-guard as you press the wrong button and give them access.