7 ms·

Max's privacy war brings Facebook to heel

53 points by nreece 15y ago

veyron 15y ago
"Under European law, consumers have the right to request a record of the personal information held by a company." Given that Facebook's international headquarters is in Ireland, does the law also apply to Facebook when it deals with US users?
- gst 15y ago
  http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf "If you are a resident of or have your principal place of business in the US or Canada, this Statement is an agreement between you and Facebook, Inc. Otherwise, this Statement is an agreement between you and Facebook Ireland Limited. References to “us,” “we,” and “our” mean either Facebook, Inc. or Facebook Ireland Limited, as appropriate." Wonder what's valid for me. When I created the account I wasn't US resident, now I am.
- brc 15y ago
  I thought most countries had these types of privacy laws in place. Way back in the dim early days of my career I remember working on privacy projects so people could get all of the information held by a company. IIRC the rule was you were allowed to request, but the company was also allowed to charge a reasonable fee to collect and supply the data. I also recall the law didn't say anything about making the company delete the data, just that you had to be able to provide all of it back to the person if they asked for it.
burgerbrain 15y ago
Unfortunately "1222 pages" is a pretty clumsy measure of data, making this hard to really get a mental handle on. I'd be more interested in a byte or word count.
- thematt 15y ago
  Exactly. Look at the margins on the pages in that picture...they look like they're about 2 inches.
  - kapitalx 15y ago
    Hopefully only the top page was printed out and he didn't actually print all that out.
  - artursapek 15y ago
    The saddest part is how much easier it would have been to provide a byte count than to print those out and count the reams he went through (if he even did so)
    - jcitme 15y ago
      I think print to pdf is pretty easy... If anything, easier than byte counts, especially after formatting, graphs, and other stuff is factored in...
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      @jcitme You've been hellbanned for nearly 5 months. Also, I don't see how bytecounts could possibly be harder than anything else. You'd see it before you even managed to get the (probably multiple) files open to print to pdf.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
- ticks 15y ago
  I don't think the amount of data (or pages) is important, although it's attractive as a headline. The important aspect is the apparent indefinite retention of deleted information. I wonder if the data retention is on purpose? And if so, why? Commercial reasons? A requirement from a stakeholder?
btn 15y ago
While it's good to see online privacy issues getting more attention, I think that the enduring message that people take away from these articles shouldn't be "Facebook is evil", but rather "I should be more aware of the privacy of my data". (Although, if Facebook is breaking the law, that's a little different.) After all, these issues aren't specific to Facebook. They, and companies like them, are collecting information that has been voluntarily surrendered to them in the first place, whether explicitly by you (creating an account, messaging people), by others (friends tagging you, inviting you to events), or implicitly (visiting websites with "like/share" buttons). People need to be aware of these issues across all facets of their online life, not just the policies of a single company.
- Shenglong 15y ago
  While privacy doesn't always seem like a concern, lots of these things come back to bite you later on.
- gerggerg 15y ago
  It's not exactly voluntary if you don't know about it. For example all the sites you visit that callback to facebook results in facebook knowing a portion of your browsing history whether you're logged in to facebook or not and without most people knowing.
  - natrius 15y ago
    It's odd that this is framed as a Facebook issue. Ad networks have been doing this since (internet) time immemorial. It's still an issue that Facebook does it, but you'd think people would be more concerned about the companies that are already mining their browsing data.
- vetler 15y ago
  Facebook isn't evil. Perhaps they're a bit naïve, thinking that storing all this data is ok, but it might not be. Whenever Max' story comes up, someone usually comments that using Facebook is completely voluntarily, and people should just not use it if it bothers them what kind of data Facebook collects and how it uses them. Whether or not it's voluntary is completely besides the point here. First of all, as gerggerg mentioned in a comment here, it's not voluntary if you don't know about it (i.e. what data Facebook collects and what they do with it). Second, if a company provides me with a service, I expect them to do it in accordance with the law. So, when Facebook provides us with their services, I really don't see why I shouldn't be able to request the information that Max has requested from them. It is actually my right to use their service, and then ask them to provide me with the data they have stored about me. Of course, Facebook will also expect to run their service in accordance with the law, and be ready to hand over data when it's requested. It's not like this is something we Europeans suddenly pulled out of a hat, and I'm sure Facebook knew about it. Any company that decides to open offices in another country will of course take time to learn about laws that affect their business. We've had laws for this for a while, actually, and we learn about how we can request our personal data from companies in school (at least I did). But don't feel bad for the companies that have to comply to this law - it's not like all they do is sit around providing data to people requesting it. Most people don't actually request it!
artursapek 15y ago
What an unimportant measure of data. I bet a lot of that '1222 pages,' or up to 700mb (based on an average CD), is timestamps and other metadata on where and when he poked, commented, updated, and deleted his friends, photos, and statuses. You know, the sort of petty activity that Facebooking is mostly composed of. It doesn't really add up like that. Most of it never matters a week later. What would have been more interesting is the KIND of data he got. Like, to what extent have they been tracking him physically? Today I myself updated to the Timeline profile and was surprised at the addition of a Map section beside my photos with 70 markers of where Facebook knows I've been. Looking through them though I remember authorizing the tracking in all of the ones I saw, and it's mostly just at school and at home. Did the data include the websites he visits, speaking lately of the 3rd-party tracking cookies that the Like buttons got so much attention for? His level of friendship with his various friends? They have algorithms for this, and the extent to which they analyze a user is more interesting than how endowed their database is. Unfortunately the real juicy stuff probably isn't even there because the article says Facebook isn't required legally to provide any 'analytical procedures' that they run. I bet most of that 1222 pages is just noise.
ddw 15y ago
> said the spokesman, who did not give a name in keeping with company policy. So strange...

53 points by nreece 15y ago

"Under European law, consumers have the right to request a record of the personal information held by a company." Given that Facebook's international headquarters is in Ireland, does the law also apply to Facebook when it deals with US users?

gst 15y ago
http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf "If you are a resident of or have your principal place of business in the US or Canada, this Statement is an agreement between you and Facebook, Inc. Otherwise, this Statement is an agreement between you and Facebook Ireland Limited. References to “us,” “we,” and “our” mean either Facebook, Inc. or Facebook Ireland Limited, as appropriate." Wonder what's valid for me. When I created the account I wasn't US resident, now I am.
brc 15y ago
I thought most countries had these types of privacy laws in place. Way back in the dim early days of my career I remember working on privacy projects so people could get all of the information held by a company. IIRC the rule was you were allowed to request, but the company was also allowed to charge a reasonable fee to collect and supply the data. I also recall the law didn't say anything about making the company delete the data, just that you had to be able to provide all of it back to the person if they asked for it.

burgerbrain 15y ago

Unfortunately "1222 pages" is a pretty clumsy measure of data, making this hard to really get a mental handle on. I'd be more interested in a byte or word count.

thematt 15y ago
Exactly. Look at the margins on the pages in that picture...they look like they're about 2 inches.
- kapitalx 15y ago
  Hopefully only the top page was printed out and he didn't actually print all that out.
- artursapek 15y ago
  The saddest part is how much easier it would have been to provide a byte count than to print those out and count the reams he went through (if he even did so)
  - jcitme 15y ago
    I think print to pdf is pretty easy... If anything, easier than byte counts, especially after formatting, graphs, and other stuff is factored in...
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    @jcitme You've been hellbanned for nearly 5 months. Also, I don't see how bytecounts could possibly be harder than anything else. You'd see it before you even managed to get the (probably multiple) files open to print to pdf.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
ticks 15y ago
I don't think the amount of data (or pages) is important, although it's attractive as a headline. The important aspect is the apparent indefinite retention of deleted information. I wonder if the data retention is on purpose? And if so, why? Commercial reasons? A requirement from a stakeholder?

btn 15y ago

While it's good to see online privacy issues getting more attention, I think that the enduring message that people take away from these articles shouldn't be "Facebook is evil", but rather "I should be more aware of the privacy of my data". (Although, if Facebook is breaking the law, that's a little different.) After all, these issues aren't specific to Facebook. They, and companies like them, are collecting information that has been voluntarily surrendered to them in the first place, whether explicitly by you (creating an account, messaging people), by others (friends tagging you, inviting you to events), or implicitly (visiting websites with "like/share" buttons). People need to be aware of these issues across all facets of their online life, not just the policies of a single company.

Shenglong 15y ago
While privacy doesn't always seem like a concern, lots of these things come back to bite you later on.
gerggerg 15y ago
It's not exactly voluntary if you don't know about it. For example all the sites you visit that callback to facebook results in facebook knowing a portion of your browsing history whether you're logged in to facebook or not and without most people knowing.
- natrius 15y ago
  It's odd that this is framed as a Facebook issue. Ad networks have been doing this since (internet) time immemorial. It's still an issue that Facebook does it, but you'd think people would be more concerned about the companies that are already mining their browsing data.
vetler 15y ago
Facebook isn't evil. Perhaps they're a bit naïve, thinking that storing all this data is ok, but it might not be. Whenever Max' story comes up, someone usually comments that using Facebook is completely voluntarily, and people should just not use it if it bothers them what kind of data Facebook collects and how it uses them. Whether or not it's voluntary is completely besides the point here. First of all, as gerggerg mentioned in a comment here, it's not voluntary if you don't know about it (i.e. what data Facebook collects and what they do with it). Second, if a company provides me with a service, I expect them to do it in accordance with the law. So, when Facebook provides us with their services, I really don't see why I shouldn't be able to request the information that Max has requested from them. It is actually my right to use their service, and then ask them to provide me with the data they have stored about me. Of course, Facebook will also expect to run their service in accordance with the law, and be ready to hand over data when it's requested. It's not like this is something we Europeans suddenly pulled out of a hat, and I'm sure Facebook knew about it. Any company that decides to open offices in another country will of course take time to learn about laws that affect their business. We've had laws for this for a while, actually, and we learn about how we can request our personal data from companies in school (at least I did). But don't feel bad for the companies that have to comply to this law - it's not like all they do is sit around providing data to people requesting it. Most people don't actually request it!

artursapek 15y ago

What an unimportant measure of data. I bet a lot of that '1222 pages,' or up to 700mb (based on an average CD), is timestamps and other metadata on where and when he poked, commented, updated, and deleted his friends, photos, and statuses. You know, the sort of petty activity that Facebooking is mostly composed of. It doesn't really add up like that. Most of it never matters a week later. What would have been more interesting is the KIND of data he got. Like, to what extent have they been tracking him physically? Today I myself updated to the Timeline profile and was surprised at the addition of a Map section beside my photos with 70 markers of where Facebook knows I've been. Looking through them though I remember authorizing the tracking in all of the ones I saw, and it's mostly just at school and at home. Did the data include the websites he visits, speaking lately of the 3rd-party tracking cookies that the Like buttons got so much attention for? His level of friendship with his various friends? They have algorithms for this, and the extent to which they analyze a user is more interesting than how endowed their database is. Unfortunately the real juicy stuff probably isn't even there because the article says Facebook isn't required legally to provide any 'analytical procedures' that they run. I bet most of that 1222 pages is just noise.

ddw 15y ago

> said the spokesman, who did not give a name in keeping with company policy. So strange...