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Meta to pay Texas $1.4B for using facial recognition without users' permission
- tareqak 2y agoSame story from the Associated Press: Meta agrees to $1.4B settlement with Texas in privacy lawsuit over facial recognition - https://apnews.com/article/texas-attorney-general-meta-settlement-3ed4d9c3c3abc4494a3731eac8643e4e https://apnews.com/article/texas-attorney-general-meta-settl...
- dantyti 2y agoThis one seems like the better of the two, as it includes Q124 profit and revenue numbers, as well as the stock's movement
- tediousgraffit1 2y agoit also suggests some important details, like the fact that this was already opt-in: > At the time, more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users had opted in to have their faces recognized by the social network’s system.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoMany of Facebook's "opt-in" things aren't actually consent, so I'm prejudicially wary of any numbers Facebook gives. (I have no insight into this particular case.)
- gerdesj 2y agoHow was the "opt in" offered? In general, when I come across some sort of opt in I get offered a choice between allowing something to work and it not working and having some sort of a sub optimal experience. I can't even try before I buy either because once I have consented, the data/image/whatever is already "released". Most opt-in choices, unless coerced by laws, will be heavy handed nudges at best. I'm an IT consultant and stand more of a chance than most at making an informed choice but please don't wave "opt in" as some sort of laundering procedure. I am deliberately juxtaposing with money laundering.
- nkrisc 2y agoI don’t believe for a moment that a third of users would consensually opt-in to anything less than free money. I can’t tell you how many newsletters and other BS I unknowingly “opted-in” to, for example.
- bicx 2y agoI believe they asked things like “Get notified when you appear in your friends photos” or something along those lines. My memory is fuzzy though. Phrasing it like that would probably get more opt-ins. It’s a lot less scary sounding.
- erichocean 2y agoI kind of wish 3rd parties could set the text of what is being opted into. It's way too easy for companies to mislead consumers about what they are agreeing to.
- freedomben 2y agoYes, but the other side is true too. For example, if the prompt just said "Allow Facebook to scan all your personal photos and do facial recognition, and also capture some of that data for future use?" then it's not at all clear why they are asking for this. Also it's going to all be "no" from the users. Much better would be a compromise, that describes both why and what. Though, that will be a lot of text which isn't good either. Hard problem.
- Teever 2y agoI guess it's a hard problem, but is it a worthwhile problem?
- qwerty456127 2y agoDo fines to big corporations even work? I tend to suspect paying them is a part of the business model - they will keep doing whatever they want to generate huge profits covering whatever fines they may have to pay.
- Detrytus 2y agoWell, I would expect that, in addition to paying money, this settlement also obliges Meta to stop doing whatever they were doing. And if they don't, then I would expect fine for repeated offense to be much higher, like 10x. At some point that would make ignoring law unprofitable.
- camdat 2y agoMeta had already ceased facial tagging over a year before the suit was filed, according to Ars. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/meta-to-pay-1-4-billion-settlement-after-texas-facial-recognition-complaint/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/meta-to-pay-1-4-...
- _mlbt 2y agoFacebook annual revenue last year was $134.90 billion. https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2024/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Results-Initiates-Quarterly-Dividend/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
- mbreese 2y agoThat’s still a fine of 1% of revenue, which seems like a small percentage, but is still a sizable hit. It’s enough to make investors notice, but probably not substantially if it is a once-off event. If it isn’t a one-off event though and states/countries start fining it all over the place, then there might be more of an issue.
- dantyti 2y agoas noted in the AP article, it's at least a second settlement: > In 2021, a judge approved a $650 million settlement with the company, formerly known as Facebook, over similar allegations of users in Illinois.
- flerchin 2y ago[flagged]
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- tomwheeler 2y agoWas Texas the victim? If not, why shouldn't the actual victims get the money?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dantyti 2y agowhen someone litters on my lawn the administrative fine goes into the local/state budget, not my pocket.
- equivocates 2y agowhen someone steals your tv, the restitution is paid to the victims.
- marcosdumay 2y agoRestitution is payed to the victims; fines are payed to law-enforcing organizations.
- selectodude 2y agoWhen Illinois won a judgement, I received a check in the mail.
- olyjohn 2y agoYou split the money up among the users, everybody gets a $1.50 check in the mail that costs $0.50 to mail out. Most of the checks will get tossed in the trash. Might as well just burn the money.
- davidgay 2y ago1.4 billion $ / 30 million people = $47/person. Do the math before being generically cynical?
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- lulzury 2y agoThere's a similar ongoing lawsuit by Texas against Google https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/texas-fights-google-deposition-bid-biometric-privacy-lawsuit-2024-06-26/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/texas-fights-goo...
- dantyti 2y agoI think this adware company is pure evil, but this feature seems like something a user might actually opt in to (as noted in the AP story, quite a few did). Interesting to see that while meta at least publicly scraps the feature, a similar one on iOS Photos is not even an opt-in – you can't turn it off.
- ta1243 2y agoIt will be trivial to get users to opt in, just bury it in the "terms of service" for whatsapp/instragram/facebook/etc and you're set. Network effects mean you can't realistically say no.
- phyrex 2y agoThe difference is that the information gets processed, stored, and accessed only on your own devices with Apple, and on metas servers in the case of Facebook.
- warkdarrior 2y agoHow does information about my face gets processed, stored, and accessed only on your own devices? Without Apple's help?
- phyrex 2y agoI don’t understand the question? iPhoto detects faces and you can assign one of your contacts to that face?
- joeamroo 2y agoThis going to be a slippery slope as more governments start to use fines as an alternative type of tax unique to these tech companies. I don't know how Meta/Google can react to these fines (Except the whole opt-in part, but then you have a tradeoff with usability, and people against it usually think that Meta cares about their data outside the aggregate)
- surfingdino 2y agoThere is fuck all that those companies need facial recognition for. It is simply not needed and is just a massive invasion of privacy.
- autoexec 2y agoThey need it so that they can spy on you. It's not needed, but many companies are built on surveillance capitalism and an increasing number of companies are using that surveillance to gain a huge advantage over their customers. The more a company knows about you, the easier it is for them to take advantage of you. There's a lot of money to be made exploiting the most intimate details of our lives. Nobody "needs" that money, but they sure don't want to leave it on the table when the government isn't going to stop them from violating our privacy and then stuffing their pockets with our cash.
- jart 2y agoIf there's a lot of money to be made, could you give some concrete examples with that have wide applicability? Ideally I'd like to hear something better than just selling it to an advertiser or data broker.
- autoexec 2y agoExamples on how companies and people can make more money by exploiting the massive amounts of private data being collected and sold? I guess that's fair. No company will tell you when they exploit your data to their advantage. It's hidden. Prices can be set according to the data companies have on you and the assumptions they make using that same data. The price you're asked to pay for something when you shop online isn't always the same price your neighbor would be asked to pay for the exact same item. Lots of potential here too when restaurants don't publicly disclose their prices, but insist that you use a cell phone app or scan a QR code just to see a menu. Your prices don't have to be the same as the person in line behind you for the same foods. Physical retailers have been trying to get this going for a long time. "For example, ZipRecruiter, an online employment marketplace, indicates that it could increase profits by 84% by experimenting with personalized prices" (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41272-019-00224-3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41272-019-00224-3) Fast food chain Wendy's tried to move the needle closer to personalized pricing (aka discriminatory pricing) when they said they were moving to surge pricing and you'd never know how much a burger was going to cost you until you'd already waited in line at the drive through and were told what price you were getting. They backed down due to consumer backlash, but their desire to squeeze every last dime possible out of you by leveraging big data and algorithms is still there. Hotel/airfare/travel industry has been doing this for a very long time already (https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mac-users-pay-more-than-pc-users-says-orbitz/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mac-users-pa... and https://millionmilesecrets.com/guides/are-airlines-raising-your-ticket-price-based-on-browser-history/ https://millionmilesecrets.com/guides/are-airlines-raising-y...) Health insurance companies want your data so they can charge you more for not moving enough, or because people in your zip code were logged eating more fastfood, or because you've been spending too much on alcohol at the store. https://www.propublica.org/article/health-insurers-are-vacuuming-up-details-about-you-and-it-could-raise-your-rates https://www.propublica.org/article/health-insurers-are-vacuu... https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital/insurers-want-patients-use-wearables-could-be-problem https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital/insurer... A lot of the tracking we see is explicitly trying to assess traits like intelligence, education level, and mental illnesses including dementia and bipolar disorder. Here for example is a pizza shop that will "create a profile about you reflecting your preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes." You know, just normal pizza shop stuff! (https://pie-tap.com/privacy/ https://pie-tap.com/privacy/) Companies and scammers alike can easily target uneducated and low intelligence individuals, and machine learning algorithms can detect when bi-polar people are in a manic phase, or what time your ADHD meds usually start to wear off, or when someone with alzheimers starts sundowning and they can jump at those chances to hit people with ads, scams, and manipulations when they think their target is weakest/most confused/most impulsive. Even without a diagnosis your mental health is a huge business opportunity for the person willing to exploit it (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/28/suicide-hotline-silicon-valley-privacy-debates-00002617 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/28/suicide-hotline-sil...) The data being collected on you is increasingly used for really big things like if you get a job, or if your rental lease agreement gets approved, but it's also used for really trivial things like determining how long to leave you on hold when you call a company (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/secret-consumer-score-access.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/secret-consumer-...) Companies aren't collecting huge amounts of facts about you and your life because it's fun for them. They pay a lot of money to purchase, collect, store, maintain, backup, and scrutinize all that data, and they do it because it's making them money. Almost always, their increased profits come at your expense.
- websap 2y agoThis is kinda foolish. I find this feature to be extremely useful. Governments need to do better at reducing the burden of choice for end users. I as an end user of an app shouldn't have to go through every feature, how it is implemented and if that meets my personal privacy bar. Sensible defaults are important.
- causal 2y ago> Governments need to do better at reducing the burden of choice for end users. Arguably that's what Texas is doing here. Requiring permission to apply facial recognition feels like a very sensible default.
- autoexec 2y agoWhat Texas is doing here is telling companies that they don't need your permission to steal your facial recognition data. Companies just need to consider that after several years of profiting from that facial recognition data they might one day have to pay just a tiny fraction of the money they make to the state of Texas. Cost of doing business really.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- downrightmike 2y agoyes, but that would require a good, better than California's protections, federal GDPR like law, and data brokers are actively lobbying against it.
- jimbob45 2y agoWere Facebook's lawyers asleep at the wheel for this one? It seems like they could have thrown in a clause about "pictures uploaded may be subject to facial recognition software" and no one would have batted an eye. How is it possible that they dropped the ball so hard here?
- chmod775 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised if they had that. They also could've added a clause that Facebook now owns your house, and it'd probably be roughly as interesting to a court. The fact is that many things buried in EULAs and whatnot are not really enforceable nor constitute consent. Some things have to be agreed to more explicitly than putting them on page 50 of your fine-print. It's especially problematic when companies start doing something you didn't directly sign up for or couldn't have expected to happen when you did. I don't think that many people who signed up for a social network in 2015 expected that their photos would later be scanned. It might surprise people even now.
- staticman2 2y agoPutting it in the TOS wouldn't help. If my friend takes a picture of me and posts it on Facebook, I have in no way agreed to Facebook's TOS.
- twothreeone 2y ago[flagged]
- polishdude20 2y agoIf those products the tech giants withhold are harming users right to privacy, then isn't it beneficial for it to happen? You can think of Texas as leading the way in regulating tech.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- RIMR 2y agoIt's extremely funny watching big tech companies relocated to Texas because of "deregulation" (or in Elon Musk's case, because he's a big whiny baby), only to learn that red states still love regulation and hate big tech more than blue states. Elon learned this lesson the hard way moving Tesla's HQ from CA to TX, and then back to CA. Now he's doing it again with SpaceX. Texas is the absolute last place I would headquarter a business if I cared about its future.
- tick_tock_tick 2y agoIsn't Texas basically tied with New York and CA for fortune 500 companies? It really seems like a non issue for them. > Now he's doing it again with SpaceX. There test site and critical infrastructure is all in Texas so this one at-least makes sense unlike the Tesla one.
- harmmonica 2y agoDo you have a source for Tesla moving its HQ back to CA? I can't seem to find that online. Maybe you mean Tesla engineering? I'm admittedly not sure what that means vs Tesla overall, but it sounds like only the engineering moved back, not the overall company. Not trying to nitpick; generally want to know if the actual HQ of the company moved back.
- engineer_22 2y ago
- RIMR 2y ago[flagged]
- big-green-man 2y agoReally? From what I gather there's no differences in applicability of the laws in that state between men and women or trans.
- hoten 2y agoYes, the laws against abortion in Texas apply equally to men and woman. I mean, I guess that's a thing one could say. But that's obviously not what was meant or even implied, so I can only unfortunately conclude you are meaning to be obtuse?
- dgfitz 2y agoYou’re why Facebook sucks. Stop.
- RIMR 2y ago[flagged]
- CursedUrn 2y agoHopefully other states and countries sue them too. Facebook has taken massive liberties with our private data and they should be held accountable for it.
- kazinator 2y ago[flagged]
- crowcroft 2y agoCitation needed.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- corney91 2y agoThat's not the same as consenting to Facebook using their data for whatever Facebook wants.
- kazinator 2y agoAnyone who clicks agree without reading and carefully interpreting every word of the terms of service is in fact consenting to almost anything. Almost anything you can think of could be there and you don't care. I mean even things which are not actually written in the TOS. If you don't know what's in the agreement, you're agreeing to almost anything in principle. The number of Facebook users who have actually read all the legal crap probably wouldn't fill a small lecture hall.
- tumult 2y agoThis affected people who never even used Facebook. It would tag and track your presence in photos even if you had no Facebook account.
- 1oooqooq 2y agothis is the core Facebook (and google et al) business model whatsapp and google system apps scan your contact list every two seconds (not hyperbole) and send the diff to their servers. if you are in someone's phonebook, you're very well cataloged on their systems. and those contact entries tie phone, email, name, other grouping, association list by crossing lists, address, aliases, etc. they have to claim they don't map those identities for ad targeting, but everything else they can claim you "asked for it" like suggesting new contacts to add is fair game.
- josefritzishere 2y agoTexas passed a pretty solid CCPA-like data privacy law (TDPSA) which went into effect July 1st of 2024. That start date was announced when it was passed in JUne of 2023. Meta needs to get with the times, they're wildly out of compliance.
- kazinator 2y agoGovernmental cash grab; the actual users whose faces were subject to recognition won't see a cent, assuming anything is actually paid. Those not in Texas will not benefit indirectly in any way.
- enobrev 2y agoCertainly possible. At the very least, in IL, I got a check for somewhere around $400.
- delichon 2y ago> This was the first lawsuit Paxton’s office argued under a 2009 state law that protects Texans’ biometric data, like fingerprints and facial scans. The law requires businesses to inform and get consent from individuals before collecting such data. I hope it only restricts business, because I have an awkward amount of face blindness and would love to have an app that could put names to them. I wonder if the maker of such an app would be liable for my use of it in Texas.
- criddell 2y agoAs long as it’s opt-in, there wouldn’t be a problem. Without that, I don’t think it could work. Does your need for an accessibility device trump my right to privacy?
- warkdarrior 2y agoWhere can I tell the Texas government (or Illinois, etc) that I opt-in to all facial-recognition software available to users?
- tediousgraffit1 2y agothis is a really important point that's not clear to me - from the [ap news article](https://apnews.com/article/texas-attorney-general-meta-settlement-3ed4d9c3c3abc4494a3731eac8643e4e https://apnews.com/article/texas-attorney-general-meta-settl...) linked in the top comment - > At the time, more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users had opted in to have their faces recognized by the social network’s system. Facebook introduced facial recognition more than a decade earlier but gradually made it easier to opt out of the feature as it faced scrutiny from courts and regulators.
- delichon 2y agoI don't think I should need your permission to use a prosthetic to overcome a disability in performing an essential human function.
- criddell 2y ago
- jeffwask 2y agoWhen do I get my 46.6 dollars or even better my 933 dollars if we only look at active Facebook users either way it still seems like a great deal price for everyone's biometrics.
- the_sleaze_ 2y agoUndoubtedly a great price. At times like this I'd like to see the entire extent of the profits split up among the plaintiffs. > “Wherever I'm going, I'll be there to apply the formula. I'll keep the secret intact. It's simple arithmetic. It's a story problem. If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall? You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall. If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt. If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.”
- singleshot_ 2y agoThe Coase equation.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoPeople always quote this like the company is doing something disreputable, but that's exactly what you want them to do as long as the cost of the lawsuits accurately represent the amount of the harm. Recalling a hundred million cars at the cost of a hundred billion dollars because there is a 0.5% chance that one person across the entire hundred million could die is the wrong choice. Otherwise all products would have to be recalled continuously, because nothing is perfectly safe. Example: Many cars have been sold without lane departure warning systems, even though that could cause some people to die. Should they all be recalled? The equation above is how you calculate the cutoff for whether to do the recall. What would you propose that they do instead?
- swamp40 2y agoIs this why Illinois made it illegal too? For a nice big payout?
- dmitrygr 2y agoOr maybe because the public wants this? I sure as hell want facial recognition made more difficult. I can’t change my face so I would prefer it not be used as a key in any database
- immibis 2y agoThere's a zero to negative correlation between the amount the voting public wants a bill to pass, and the likelihood that it passes. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- bdcravens 2y ago[flagged]
- jmakov 2y agoThis is a trend not only among banks but more and more among big tech - just include the (future) fine into your product price, then settle (if they investigate at all). No harm, nobody goes to prison, everybody happy.
- jldugger 2y agoAlso feels like a trend among states to end-run the commerce clause. Want to tax imports despite the Constitution? Just pass regulations that only affect out of state industries and fine them for non-compliance.
- kelnos 2y agoI think that's fair, given that the commerce clause is interpreted so ridiculously broadly that the 10th amendment might as well not exist.
- cryptonector 2y agoIt should really be flipped. Wickard should be overruled, as a result reducing the federal power to regulate intra-state affairs, but state power better circumscribed by the Commerce Clause: no one state should be able to dictate nationwide commerce terms on account of its economy's size. Whether that would prevent Texas from regulating Meta as in this case is not clear -- the courts would have to figure that out.
- andsoitis 2y agoThis pattern is not exclusive to “big companies”. We all know individuals who explicitly do the same w.r.t. speeding on the highway, driving in the HOV lanes, etc. So it seems to me that there’s a fundamental human trait (“what can I get away with” ??) that warrants thinking about as well.
- dietr1ch 2y ago> So it seems to me that there’s a fundamental human trait (“what can I get away with” ??) that warrants thinking about as well. Idk, I suspect many "crimes" like jaywalking and speeding are more around, this rule errs too hard on safety, but I know I can do this safely, and if it's not safe enough I'll get to pay the consequences (fines, accidents, dying). That's nothing like violating the privacy of other people for profit and no real penalty (actual jailtime for those involved, not just a --fine-- tax on the profits)
- worstspotgain 2y ago[flagged]
- goodnuff 2y ago[dead]
- eftychis 2y agoEquitable and more specifically injunctive relief is the way out of this abuse of "crime is the cost of doing business" mentality. (That a lot of us raise here.) What could that mean: Meta or whichever company breaks the law, loses ownership and rights to anything that is the result of the crime. If it's a model, Meta can not use that or any other version of the model that utilized data illegally acquired. And that model becomes property of the victims.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoThat would be the equivalent of confiscating a fleet or trucks from a trucking company whenever a driver broke a law. A little extreme and will never happen. China doesn't even operate like this.
- eftychis 2y agoNot unheard of for some crimes, eg drugs or money laundering. Securities fraud also essentially offers that: all money made out of the fraud and gains on that belong to the victims. California's Unfair Competition framework also dictates essentially payment of the proceeds of the "unlawful activity" and taking actions to undo it. Again this is already an existing relief for certain crimes or civil torts committed by individuals. We just have not legislated to apply it to you know the other "persons," the companies.
- trte9343r4 2y ago[flagged]
- Ductapemaster 2y agoAs the owner of a shelter dog, sounds like a terrible idea. A dog can be provoked — a company much less so.
- trte9343r4 2y agoProvocation is not an excuse! You have no right to send people into hospital! Dog is your responsibility! Use leash, muzzle or keep it at home! If it is dangerous (like you admit), destroy it!
- farceSpherule 2y agoThe fine is nothing. Not even 10% of their net profits for 2023.
- galangalalgol 2y agoIf every state sues and gets almost %10 that could be an issue...
- Dowwie 2y agoDo the users get any of that money?
- 29athrowaway 2y agoWill they delete the information? Or they purchased Texan facial data for 1.4b?
- tediousgraffit1 2y agothe ap news article linked by the top comment indicates that they deleted 'faceprints': > The company announced in 2021 that it was shutting down its face-recognition system and delete the faceprints of more than 1 billion people...
- 29athrowaway 2y agoWhat does deletion mean anyways? some bullshit soft deletion without any auditing that will enable them to keep using the data?
- phyrex 2y agoMeta does get audited
- shmeeed 2y agoReal question, how do you audit that data got deleted with certainty, and not just locked away out of reach for the time being? To me this seems like a fact hard to prove.
- 29athrowaway 2y agoHow can you audit that all copies of data are deleted? there is simply no way. You can make infinite copies of data and do contortions around the definition of deletion, like "soft deletion", "anonymization", etc.
- tediousgraffit1 2y ago> The attorney general’s office did not say whether the money from the settlement would go into the state’s general fund or if it would be distributed in some other way. so where's that money going to wind up?
- warkdarrior 2y agoThe money goes to the AG's re-election campaign.
- Noumenon72 2y agoHuh, I wondered why this feature stopped being available. It would be even more useful now that you could use AI to say "find me all photos of George riding his bike" or "find all pictures of me with Dave".
- hamasho 2y agoProbably that data was used to train AI models too. I hope we establish a legal framework that prevents training models without proper permission, and the companies that have already trained their models will get fined and those models will be banned from commercial use. I enjoy the rapid progress of LLMs. ChatGPT and Claude are already a critical part of my daily work. But I don't like the current situation where VCs and start-ups use unpermitted data to train the models, don't respect content creators, and take advantage of the lack of regulations.
- sensanaty 2y agoThere really needs to be a 3-strike rule type of thing with fines like these. It's ridiculous to me that they can continue to violate people's privacy without their consent, get fined a percentage of a percentage of the money they actually made on the practice, and that's the end of it. These fines should be exponential in nature, and aggressively so. The 4th-in-a-row fine of this nature should basically take everything they earned in the whole year. Let's see how quick and efficient they suddenly become once there's actual consequences. That, or Zucc and his cronies should be getting jailed. I'm fine with either option, or preferably both.
- xkcd1963 2y agoYes. And facebook is not too big to fail. There are thousands of alternatives to Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. And the few employees they have easily find another job.
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- mattfrommars 2y agoAnyone know how much money the legal firm gets from this? Their cut should be substantial since we are talking $1.4 billon dollars here.
- lern_too_spel 2y agoIt's the AG's office filing the suit, not a class action.
- hobo_in_library 2y agoSo who gets the money?
- rideontime 2y agoNow do Clearview AI.
- dreamcompiler 2y agoKen Paxton is still under federal investigation for various crimes, but I suppose even criminals do the right thing sometimes.
- jrochkind1 2y ago> Consumer Reports, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, commended Paxton for the lawsuit but noted it was an outliner. outlier, presumably. i remember when newspapers had good copy editing.
- bankcust08385 2y agoMaybe the state can direct some funds to TxDOT to properly mark hazards on their easements near roadways and properties to avoid my mom crashing her car into a hidden, unguarded, unmarked culvert.
- blitzar 2y agoIt's a write-off for them. They just write it off. All these big companies just write everything.
- jameson 2y ago> Meta introduced a feature known as Tag Suggestions to make it easier for users to tag people in their photos. According to Paxton’s office, the feature was turned on by default and ran facial recognition on users’ photos, automatically capturing data protected by the 2009 law. Meta should also be forbidden from using any features derived from this data, or open source any trained model from the data. 1.4B settlement is too small compared to the long term gains of a company
- ergocoder 2y agoI'm surprised they haven't checked that the data isn't used elsewhere...
- wwilim 2y agoSuing big tech for ethical issues seems to be a reliable source of income for governments these days
- xvector 2y agoWrite enough laws and a company is bound to break one of them at some point. Simple probability. Easy source of income for an indefinite period.
- Lio 2y agoIf your business is dedicated to removing people’s legal right to privacy then you are probably going to break the law at some point. Why not just act ethically in the first place?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xvector 2y agoMost privacy laws today are incredibly overwrought and vague. In this case, face recognition was illegal even if you opted into it. Try being a startup that needs any amount of customer data to operate, and then read the GDPR and realize it's better off to just move to the US. Regardless, you are missing the point. It is a straightforward calculus that if you craft enough complicated and vague privacy laws, companies are bound to violate it, no matter what they do or how hard they try. All you have to do is craft a set of laws in which any company can always be interpreted as in violation of one. If I was a state, I would go out of my way to craft these vague, overwrought laws so I could have a reliable source of an extra few billion dollars here and there whenever I needed it. If I was a regulator or legislator, I'd do it for the career clout of "going after the big bad guys." And no one will ever complain, because "big companies are evil and capitalism has never done anything for humanity," so the Overton window can only ever move in one direction. And this is how we end up with the undeniable technological stagnancy of the EU, where they completely missed the www and mobile revolutions, and will certainly miss the AI revolutions. How many Industrial Revolutions can you miss out on before you fade into irrelevancy, having lost a meaningful portion of your financial/economic/military/technological power? I guess we will find out.