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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 "F

by 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!
- viraptor 15y ago
  > 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). Well, that's not some secret. They collect every single thing you send them and process it as they like internally. Only third-party access to the data is limitted. Assuming anything less not only from Facebook but any other company is likely to surprise you in a bad way.
  - vetler 15y ago
    > They collect every single thing you send them and process it as they like internally. No, this is wrong. They are not allowed to do whatever they want with it. In Europe there are laws on what companies can do with your data. For instance, see the Data Protection Directive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive

by btn 15y ago

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!

viraptor 15y ago
> 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). Well, that's not some secret. They collect every single thing you send them and process it as they like internally. Only third-party access to the data is limitted. Assuming anything less not only from Facebook but any other company is likely to surprise you in a bad way.
- vetler 15y ago
  > They collect every single thing you send them and process it as they like internally. No, this is wrong. They are not allowed to do whatever they want with it. In Europe there are laws on what companies can do with your data. For instance, see the Data Protection Directive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive