7 ms·

There is a legitimate question here -- do you own the information about your friends, or do your friends? Many things on Facebook are a shared quasi-public, qu

There is a legitimate question here -- do you own the information about your friends, or do your friends? Many things on Facebook are a shared quasi-public, quasi-private space where the ownership isn't clear, and don't fit into our usual mental model of "I own my own data!" This example is even clearer. The app lets you export your friends' names and contact information. This isn't your information, it's your friends'. What if one of them wanted to take their phone number off the site? What if one of them wanted to hide their information from you specifically? If you've downloaded it already you're depriving them of the right to control their own data. Clearly social networks should be required to offer some sort of friend list information for export. Maybe a bare list of user ID's is all that should be required -- the information about who your friends are seems legitimately like it's yours. Joining it against names and contact information is the potentially privacy-invasive step; that could be done online, under control of your friends, not you.

sek 15y ago
Why did Facebook import e-mails over years and still hold them in their databases? There is no way to remove them and when someone with this address enters Facebook he gets recommendations for Friends. Do they own this data? Think about this before you blame people who just try to find a way to reconnect with their friends (who are ok with being your friend on FB) on another Platform.
sorbus 15y ago
> What if one of them wanted to take their phone number off the site? What if one of them wanted to hide their information from you specifically? If you've downloaded it already you're depriving them of the right to control their own data. Consider how ridiculous that would sound if you asked "What if one of your friends had emailed you their phone number and wanted to remove your access to it (or had emailed you and wanted to remove your knowledge of their email address)? What if they gave you information in person and now want to hide it from you specifically?" That's the mental model I, personally, use for social networks: any information you choose to publish on it is fair game for whatever your friends want to do with it (and they can do whatever they want with any information I publish on it). Anyone who does not want to be contacted (or have their contact information exported into other formats - such as the linking of name and email address which is required to email) should not make it available - there's no reason to publish an email if you don't want to be emailed, and no reason to publish a phone number if you don't want to be called.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  You never tell your friends secrets in real life, and trust them not to tell the rest of the world?
  - alex_c 15y ago
    If they do, I'll be pissed at them, not at the technology they use to share my secrets.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      But you don't have a problem with them sharing your information with anyone as long as it's a technology provider? Even if that technology provider has a fundamental interest in abusing that access and using your data for purposes far beyond than what you or your friend ever intended?
      - esrauch 15y ago
        You are choosing to share the information with them. They can view your profile and see it and type it wherever else they want, the only thing that preventing automatic export achieves is making it inconvenient for someone to leave facebook, not prevent someone from taking any conceivable action they wanted with your information.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    That is unrelated to an issue that essentially amounts to adding your friends' phone numbers (phone numbers they already made available to you) to your new address book when you get a new phone.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      > That is unrelated Not if Google subsequently decide to make your information available more widely than it was originally, it's not -- and I would remind you that several of the Internet giants, including both Google and Facebook, have faced heavy criticism for deliberately doing exactly that in the not-so-distant past.
sandipc 15y ago
If I may go back a few years... If my number is listed in the 1995 local big yellow phonebook but then I choose to have it unlisted in the 1996 phonebook, is it wrong for someone with the older phonebook to have my phone number?
- Silhouette 15y ago
  No, but it is wrong for them to start plugging that number into some database of telesales people they feel like working with. (Edit: To those downvoting, do you not like the analogy, or do you not agree with the ethical principle?)
  - rwolf 15y ago
    I believe sorbus's comment covers it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      I don't really see why. The world is not black and white. I tell my friends things that are sensitive all the time, and they understand that as a matter of simple good manners and common courtesy they would keep that information between us. How come as soon as we're on the Internet, suddenly all the shades of gray disappear, and I either trust someone with my entire life story to do with as they wish or I don't trust them at all?
      - moheeb 15y ago
        When you tell your friends, the information loss over distance and time eventually makes the words turn to shades of grey. The internet preserves those words in their original state, black and white, which makes them stick out against the shades of grey composing the background. Even simpler...when your friends die, with them go the words you have shared. Not so with the internet. It appears to be immortal.
      - roldon332 15y ago
Daniel14 15y ago
I don't think that's really a legitimate question. If you tell a friend e.g. your email address, you willingly give up the control you had over that piece of information, and accept that he now knows your email address. What you're expecting is that you can control when your friend forgets the information you voluntarily gave him. I doubt that's a legitimate expectation.
wnight 15y ago
> If you've downloaded it already you're depriving them of the right to control their own data. If you don't forget them between meetings you're trampling their right to a fresh impression. If you remember that tune you're infringing on the RIAA's right to sell you another impression. But that's not how information works. If we pander to this mindset we're only letting them down when their illusion of control is shattered by the cold, hard, reality of cut-and-paste.

sek 15y ago

Why did Facebook import e-mails over years and still hold them in their databases? There is no way to remove them and when someone with this address enters Facebook he gets recommendations for Friends. Do they own this data? Think about this before you blame people who just try to find a way to reconnect with their friends (who are ok with being your friend on FB) on another Platform.

sorbus 15y ago

> What if one of them wanted to take their phone number off the site? What if one of them wanted to hide their information from you specifically? If you've downloaded it already you're depriving them of the right to control their own data. Consider how ridiculous that would sound if you asked "What if one of your friends had emailed you their phone number and wanted to remove your access to it (or had emailed you and wanted to remove your knowledge of their email address)? What if they gave you information in person and now want to hide it from you specifically?" That's the mental model I, personally, use for social networks: any information you choose to publish on it is fair game for whatever your friends want to do with it (and they can do whatever they want with any information I publish on it). Anyone who does not want to be contacted (or have their contact information exported into other formats - such as the linking of name and email address which is required to email) should not make it available - there's no reason to publish an email if you don't want to be emailed, and no reason to publish a phone number if you don't want to be called.

Silhouette 15y ago
You never tell your friends secrets in real life, and trust them not to tell the rest of the world?
- alex_c 15y ago
  If they do, I'll be pissed at them, not at the technology they use to share my secrets.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    But you don't have a problem with them sharing your information with anyone as long as it's a technology provider? Even if that technology provider has a fundamental interest in abusing that access and using your data for purposes far beyond than what you or your friend ever intended?
    - esrauch 15y ago
      You are choosing to share the information with them. They can view your profile and see it and type it wherever else they want, the only thing that preventing automatic export achieves is making it inconvenient for someone to leave facebook, not prevent someone from taking any conceivable action they wanted with your information.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  That is unrelated to an issue that essentially amounts to adding your friends' phone numbers (phone numbers they already made available to you) to your new address book when you get a new phone.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    > That is unrelated Not if Google subsequently decide to make your information available more widely than it was originally, it's not -- and I would remind you that several of the Internet giants, including both Google and Facebook, have faced heavy criticism for deliberately doing exactly that in the not-so-distant past.

sandipc 15y ago

If I may go back a few years... If my number is listed in the 1995 local big yellow phonebook but then I choose to have it unlisted in the 1996 phonebook, is it wrong for someone with the older phonebook to have my phone number?

Silhouette 15y ago
No, but it is wrong for them to start plugging that number into some database of telesales people they feel like working with. (Edit: To those downvoting, do you not like the analogy, or do you not agree with the ethical principle?)
- rwolf 15y ago
  I believe sorbus's comment covers it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    I don't really see why. The world is not black and white. I tell my friends things that are sensitive all the time, and they understand that as a matter of simple good manners and common courtesy they would keep that information between us. How come as soon as we're on the Internet, suddenly all the shades of gray disappear, and I either trust someone with my entire life story to do with as they wish or I don't trust them at all?
    - moheeb 15y ago
      When you tell your friends, the information loss over distance and time eventually makes the words turn to shades of grey. The internet preserves those words in their original state, black and white, which makes them stick out against the shades of grey composing the background. Even simpler...when your friends die, with them go the words you have shared. Not so with the internet. It appears to be immortal.
    - roldon332 15y ago

Daniel14 15y ago

I don't think that's really a legitimate question. If you tell a friend e.g. your email address, you willingly give up the control you had over that piece of information, and accept that he now knows your email address. What you're expecting is that you can control when your friend forgets the information you voluntarily gave him. I doubt that's a legitimate expectation.

wnight 15y ago

> If you've downloaded it already you're depriving them of the right to control their own data. If you don't forget them between meetings you're trampling their right to a fresh impression. If you remember that tune you're infringing on the RIAA's right to sell you another impression. But that's not how information works. If we pander to this mindset we're only letting them down when their illusion of control is shattered by the cold, hard, reality of cut-and-paste.