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Facebook collecting people's data even when accounts are deactivated
- allears 5y agoIt's worse than that. FB maintains "phantom accounts" for everybody whether you have a FB account or not. I've never had a FB account, but some years ago I got an email from FB listing a number of my friends and family and saying, "All these people have FB accounts. Wouldn't you like to join FB?" The email included a reply option labeled "don't contact me again," which I chose and then replied. But a few months later I got the same invitation. Needless to say, I found that to be deeply disturbing, and it confirmed my determination to never subscribe to FB. Later I learned about the phantom accounts. I'm sure FB maintains a dossier on me to this day.
- mrjin 5y agoBy clicking "don't contact me again" you were actually confirm that email managed to get to a valid mail box. What you should have done is really report it as junk to your email provider so that they can block it in the future.
- userbinator 5y agobut some years ago I got an email from FB I'm curious how it got your email -- and decided to use it. I have several publicly visible emails, and they've received plenty of spam, but none from FB like that.
- wackro 5y agoPeople allowing the app to access their contacts presumably. Contacts can contain email addresses as well as phone numbers.
- allears 5y agoI'm pretty sure FB accessed the contact lists of some of my friends. I've never installed the app or otherwise interacted with FB. I also know that one of my so-called "friends" posted a group picture with me in it, and labeled the people in the picture. At one point I did a search to see what information was out there about myself, and that picture popped up associated with my name. I guess that I'm just another casualty of the information age, in spite of my best efforts.
- nerdponx 5y agoI have resorted to actively asking people to not tag me in photos.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoWe reach. But with ML facial recognition I figure the jig is up.
- politician 5y agoThe jig is up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearview_AI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearview_AI
- vintermann 5y agoClearview is notable only for their brazenness. It's easy to code up face recognition these days if you have the data, and again, it's brazenness (in scraping) which is Clearview's main advantage here. In general, AI that's hawked at CEO types and police is mostly snake oil, inferior to what you can make yourself if you read hackernews and are willing to dive into Arxiv.
- dessant 5y agoThey do the same in WhatsApp, the app collects your personal data through your aquintances, and they hold your social graph even if you're not a WhatsApp user.
- Nextgrid 5y agoThere's a reason Facebook paid billions for an essentially free (and ad-free) chat app and chose to leave it that way.
- junon 5y agoI know someone that did the initial internal report to Apple about this years ago. This is exactly what it is. They use your contact data to create what are essentially graph nodes in a database, even if you've never signed up. Not sure how much of that has changed since then. But contact data is by far the most valuable mined from phones. Facebook is no exception.
- Jansen312 5y agoProbably FB has enough tech and data to recreate a virtual you as NPC in metaverse.
- politician 5y ago"'Login with Facebook' today to claim your NPC in the metaverse" /shivers
- rvense 5y agoDidn't LinkedIn once (ten years ago) ask for your email login credentials when you signed up? I know it suggested my ex-girlfriend as a connection when I opened my account, five years after we'd last talked.
- GauntletWizard 5y agoFrom your friends and family's phones, where they have a contact card for you, nicely labeled. There's a lot of data flowing around out there, and people overwhelmingly willingly hand it over. You'd think that there would be a law that, having collected that data, they would be required to hold it in confidence - Not for you, but as an agent of the friend who gave them that data. And there likely is, but good luck getting it enforced.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoas far as receiving the email, it may have been one of their friends sent an invite, but the list of people they likely knew probably left a bigger impression than "so and so wants you to join facebook" This is basically how LinkedIn grew their network - read your addressbook, put a "invite everyone you know" button in the on-boarding slideshow. Facebook just does the extra work of noticing your email in other people's address books, so they can tell you who your friends will be before you even sign up.
- allears 5y agoNope, it wasn't an "invite" from any friend. It was an email from FB itself. My understanding is that this was a short-lived campaign of theirs that was discontinued after they got some blowback. But I'm sure they still maintain a dossier on me.
- entityDev 5y agoDude, sometime around 2010-2014, FB was asking users for the email accounts of their friends 'to contact them on their behalf'. I may have the dates wrong, but I remember being pretty pissed at the time, as my so-called 'friends' were feeding them not only my email but other info as well through polls and stuff. . I never used FB at all - yet I was getting emails as described by author, but years ago when they pulled that BS. I'm on Facebook and linked to it without ever opting in, because of what my own friends/family/coworkers give them.
- southerntofu 5y agoFacebook doesn't scrap random websites for contact info. They used to rely on connecting to your Hotmail/Gmail account about a decade ago, and parsing contacts from people "stupid" enough to install FB app on their smartphone when such things started to spread. Facebook certainly knows my phone number although i've never had a Facebook account: that's completely fucked up.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- m463 5y ago
- seaman1921 5y ago> I have no idea if it's true. Please avoid such comments, they just add noise and distract everyone from the original discussion.
- southerntofu 5y agoThat comment was very relevant, although not 100% true. Facebook does (or at least did) incentivize people to post photos of users who don't have a photo yet, and to "identify" people even if they don't have an account. That's part of their phantom profiles exposed by Max Schrems and friends. To my knowledge, there is no monetary compensation involved (bounty) though.
- Crontab 5y agoI've always suspected that Google does something like this with everyone a person emails via Gmail. I don't this, it just sounds like something an advertising company would do.
- southerntofu 5y agoIs Facebook anything else than an advertisement company? I mean, apart from being a political police company working with intelligence services across the globe to crush dissent, obviously.
- tiahura 5y agoAnd? In free countries, I don't need your permission to remember who you are and facts about you.
- Biganon 5y agoThat's laughably incorrect. Whatever "free country" means, there are precise rules regarding the info you're allowed to keep and organize about me.
- oarabbus_ 5y agoI'd rather not take the side of the person you're responding to, but it's unclear what you mean. You can certainly keep and organize as much info about your neighbor or the president of the USA as you want.
- saddlerustle 5y agoFacebook does not maintain "accounts" on non-users in a meaningful way and they have stated this multiple times to multiple regulators [1]. An email campaign being sent to an intersection of a bunch of users's contacts is not evidence of "phantom accounts". [1] https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/06/final-responses-to-german-committees.pdf https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/06/fina...
- tw04 5y agoYou mean the Facebook that paid $4.9 Billion to protect their CEO from government scrutiny? The facebook that stated multiple times to multiple regulators that they would not use whatsapp user data for ad serving purposes.... and then they did it anyway? Pardon my skepticism if your only source of truth is "Facebook told regulators".
- saddlerustle 5y agoThe choice is between multiple regulatory investigations not actioning this specific issue over multiple years of the some of the most intense global scrutiny on a company in recent history verses believing somebody's tangentially related anecdote.
- kjellsbells 5y agoYou might be right or wrong, i dont know, bjt i can say with great certainty that a regulator doing nothing in the face of multiple credible accusations has no relationship to whether those accusations are true or not. Sometimes the regulator is overloaded/backlogged, sometimes they have been captured by the industry they regulate, sometimes there is pressure applied to not investigate, and do on. But it need not mean tbat there was no wrongdoing.
- msbarnett 5y ago> Facebook does not maintain "accounts" on non-users in a meaningful way and they have stated this multiple times to multiple regulators And surely they'd never mislead anybody regarding what data they keep. Which admittedly makes it a bit hard to explain how, despite having completely deleted my account several years ago (yes, not just deactivated, I went through all the little guilt-trip pleas not to delete), they managed to accidentally (a bug, presumably) send me a Friend Suggestion email several weeks ago (suggesting someone I actually do know, no less) considering that by their own words they should have wiped both that email address and the social graph associated with it several years earlier...
- heavyset_go 5y ago> The email included a reply option labeled "don't contact me again," which I chose and then replied. But a few months later I got the same invitation. All that clicking that link told Facebook is that you're a real person who reads their emails. It's like when you pick up the phone for a telemarketer, now they know they can continue bothering you because you're a real person and you answer your phone.
- alextheparrot 5y agoWonder if that’s a fake account creation edge using that, if that signal is interpreted that clearly. Setup a bunch of fake emails, upload your “contacts” to some compromised accounts, have them click on links in the emails to enroll in FB.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago"Email verification." Tech companies prey on people's sense of good faith.
- idatum 5y agoOr worse, phone # for "security".
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y agoIt will not stop there. Expect to be asked to provide more "factors" in the future.
- rendaw 5y agoThat's a technique for avoiding criminals outside the reach of US law...
- yourapostasy 5y ago> It's like when you pick up the phone for a telemarketer, now they know they can continue bothering you because you're a real person and you answer your phone. The few times a telemarketer reaches through to me on one of my phones, I've put them off by asking in a niche foreign language in that nation whether they speak that language. Most of the time, they immediately hang up and I never hear from them again. Sometimes, they repeat their script, then hang up. I've never had someone respond in that language (that would be a blast to address).
- thehappypm 5y agoSo let’s say you run an e-commerce site. Someone adds a bunch of stuff to their cart. You want to remember this so that when they come back their cart is still filled in. Is that a “phantom account”?
- boardwaalk 5y agoNo. What are you getting at? Better to not be deliberately obscure about it.
- throwaway946513 5y agoThat's generally done with browser cookies. But not such a phantom account. Nowhere near the same.
- thehappypm 5y agoSo let’s say the company wants to save the cart, the user’s favorites, and their search preferences so when they come back it’s still there. A cookie isn’t a database. So they store that info in a DB using the cookie id as the index. Is that a phantom account? You’ve got rows in a DB for a user who never signed up.
- throwaway946513 5y agoGenerally when you want to save favorites, most, as far as I've used, storefronts require that you create an account before allowing those functions.
- thehappypm 5y agoYou can book a hotel room as a guest on many hotel sites
- throwJan22 5y agoFB is just another ad selling company. If you have an account it helps them know about you, if you dont have an account it makes sense they'll still have a profile for you.
- entityDev 5y agoFB wants to track all your networks, whether they are onsite or not. Once the databases via your email or other (Cell #) get shared amongst corporations, through agreements, buyouts, or 'hacked leaks' they get access to other info quite easily
- CoastalCoder 5y agoI wonder if one could successfully apply for a restraining order against Facebook's messaging, on the theory that it's harassment.
- Jansen312 5y agoDoable. But need $. It is restraining order not a lawsuit. It is harrassment basically if they send into your email inbox unwarranted. Same goes with robot calls, and it is hard to stop them not even with congress passing laws to deal with them. At this stage, we just have to ignore it. You might want to opt for text-based emails which wont trigger any html/css feedback to FB knowing you read it (maybe tutanota mail?)
- yeetaccount4 5y agoToo lazy to internet search, can you apply a restraining order to an organization?
- bobiny 5y agoMost emails have unsubscribe button, it’s easier that restraining order I think.
- Lio 5y agoOnly if that the person sending you email abids by the "unsubscribe" and doesn't just use it to confirm that you use this email address. I would lay money that Facebook just uses that unsubscribe as another data point.
- tjpnz 5y agoI've been receiving emails but of the joining as an employee variety. It started as LinkedIn recruiter spam which I ignored but then I discovered they had signed me up to one of their "working at Meta" newsletters. Not only creepy but a violation of LinkedIn's anti-spam policies.
- vintermann 5y agoLast time I got spam from an unwanted social media service (MyHeritage), I logged in, made sure to "unsubscribe" from all communication, and set the interface language to Chinese. Guess who gets "smart matches" spam in Chinese.
- bobiny 5y agoIt’s probably because your friends chose to sync contacts and your phone was number was there.
- musicale 5y ago> I'm sure FB maintains a dossier on me to this day. I almost read that as FBI dossier. Similar idea, though presumably for advertising purposes.
- metadat 5y agoCan you send Meta a GDPR request to find out everything they have on you? Curious if anyone has done this and gotten a result.
- dessant 5y agoFacebook has been known to break the law and stall the release of all data they hold about your person. People often get an incomplete set of documents, and are ghosted when they insist on receiving the missing data categories.
- metadat 5y agoIs there a way to enact the legal system in these cases? Otherwise, what's the point of GDPR? I know ZuckFuckerberg is a scumbag, but is he really going to break the law? /s
- convery 5y agoLike most scummy companies, they bet that you don't have the funds / care enough to sue them. For example EBay sent an email to me (IP/DMARK/DKIM verified) that they had received the payment and were holding it for 'security reasons' and my account would be penalised if not shipped on time. A week later they sent an email saying that they have suspended the buyer for fraud and that I should contact the shipping company to have the item returned (was already delivered at that time). When contacting them (after 50 bot replies) they just denied sending anything (and that their signatures were spoofed), removed any info of the auction from my account, said their TOS exempts them from any damages, and told me not to contact them again. Not going through a drawn out lawsuit over $150 where my only proof is crypto signatures as all info on my account was wiped..
- superkuh 5y agoTangentially, I used DKIM signatures as proof (of them unilaterally canceling my order) in my charge back against Harbor Freight and either they just roll over on all chargebacks or it was enough proof to make them.
- kevmo 5y agoWe desperately need laws around this.
- pvarangot 5y agoThey are already known to not be in compliance with many laws that already exist.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoWe need enforcement, and we need fines high enough, to make this not worth it.
- bigjimmyjohnson 5y agoFines? How about prison time for stalking?
- sodality2 5y agoExactly. Always read "fines" as "business expenses" if it's in this context. Especially w.r.t FAANG, in which case it's laughably small business expenses. Occasionally they'll be serious but never enough..
- lmkg 5y agoWhatsapp (owned by Facebook) was fined 225 million Euros for GDPR violations, the largest GDPR fine to date. Of that, 75 million was specifically for harvesting info from contact lists.
- Havoc 5y agoTikTok aside they must be one of the least trustworthy major social media companies
- schappim 5y agoAt this point I'd put TikTok ahead of Facebook/Meta as the US gov has TikTok on a much tigher leash.
- ed25519FUUU 5y agoTikTok is a Chinese company and the USA has literally zero input or transparency into its operation.
- schappim 5y agoYou're right, but this is why the US is more likely to bonk them over the head, admittedly this is less of a threat now w/ Biden in Office, but still a threat. TikTok's biggest short term threat is probably the CCP, which has been increasingly taking a hardline approach w/ their own tech companies (think Ant Financial, JD etc).
- bpodgursky 5y agoCome on. The CCP is taking a hardline with companies domestically. There's a huge push to stop corrupting the youth, treat data responsibly, etc. The CCP gives 0 shits what those companies do to the rest of the world, and are probably thrilled if TikTok causes political and social chaos in the US.
- schappim 5y ago>> The CCP is taking a hardline with companies domestically. There's a huge push to stop corrupting the youth, treat data responsibly, etc. Exactly, w/ 72% of their users being domestic[1], TikTok's biggest short term threat is probably the CCP. >> The CCP gives 0 shits what those companies do to the rest of the world, and are probably thrilled if TikTok causes political and social chaos in the US. You're not wrong. [1] https://www.statista.com/chart/25867/percentage-of-tiktok-users-in-the-last-12-months-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/chart/25867/percentage-of-tiktok-us...
- spandrew 5y agoWelcome to the Metaverse!
- golemotron 5y agoIt's interesting how the phrase "data about people" gradually changed into "people's data."
- grouphugs 5y ago
- websap 5y agoNow imagine this company building the metaverse. I’m so scared about it.
- heavyset_go 5y agoA digital company store run by Facebook is pretty terrifying to think about. It'll be like if AOL actually ran the entire internet.
- cwkoss 5y agoI trust AOL way more than I trust Facebook.
- notreallyserio 5y agoWell, one of them, anyway.
- literallyaduck 5y agoFeds need to raid them and their data centers, and their cloud providers.
- durnygbur 5y agoFeds are fully plugged in and using the data for various purposes.
- annadane 5y agoAnti-Zuckerberg specific legislation might be good to start looking into, I think. Say what you will about "but corporate culture". Zuck is a known manipulator and liar and he has to be stopped before he does anything else that harms the world
- karaterobot 5y agoI deleted my Facebook account in 2008 and never went back. I deeply dislike and distrust Facebook. That said, it is relevant that they only do this for "deactivated" accounts, and not "deleted" accounts. To give them the benefit of the doubt, those states are different, and if they communicated what they meant by each state, it would be fine with me if they continued tracking people until they actually deleted their accounts. The problem is that they don't communicate it very well — they didn't back in 2008, and it sounds like they don't do it much better today. That's the sneaky part, not the tracking itself. Well, the tracking is sneaky, don't get me wrong, but if you're on Facebook in 2022, you must know about it and have accepted at some level that it is happening. I also remember actually getting them to delete my account for good was not trivial. There was a waiting period, and a lot of different ways to accidentally opt out. To be honest, I initially read this article thinking it had been discovered that they were tracking "deleted" users in addition to "deactivated" users this whole time, and it didn't surprise me at all.
- xaxaxb 5y agoFB is cancer. Metaworse.
- sharkweek 5y agoThis is why I simply maintain my own FB profile but portray my interests so poorly it’ll never be of any value to Facebook advertisers. It works, too, the ads I get are so wildly irrelevant it’s comical.
- zwkrt 5y agoThat’s naive. If you have a Facebook account they know every website you go to that has affiliate advertisement or a like button on it. I’m sure they also broker data from other companies and mine it from public sources. My uninformed guess is that < 10% of the data Facebook has on any given person comes from their actual interaction with Facebook.com.
- durnygbur 5y agoBy various social interactions I've been basically forced to create Facebook account, as one of the groups use Messenger for catching up. The first friends suggestions were all people who have my mobile number in their addressbook. I haven't leaked to these leeches any other phone number than my own. Now having nothing in common with US of A my various data are owned by and traded by an American company with American intelligence agencies having direct access to them. Americans you suck.
- itsdrewmiller 5y agoIsn’t this what all advertisers do? I’m sure google tracks some concept of you, whether or not you’ve opted into or deleted your account with them.
- seesawtron 5y agoThis [0] talk from Computer Chaos Club also points out how all applications that use Facebook as authentication option (or even without it) MUST send user data to Facebook Inc. This of course doesn't require a user to have a facebook account. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vlD7r-kTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vlD7r-kTc
- hatenberg 5y agoEquifax, Nexis Lexis, Clearview etc all collect your data without you ever making an account. And actually collect highly sensitive information. What you describe is a feature of the US economy.
- skarz 5y agoI prefer an article explaining how over why.