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About an year ago, when the story blew up about the Facebook app sneaking through your phone contacts and adding friends numbers' to your Facebook account. I in

About an year ago, when the story blew up about the Facebook app sneaking through your phone contacts and adding friends numbers' to your Facebook account. I instantly deleted the Facebook app from my Android, and told my friends Facebook was clearly not reliable to have an app privilege on your phone. I called it that they would eventually do even worse, if you let them have an app in your phone. The general consensus was that I was an alarmist doomsayer extremist exaggerating over nothing. Well, who is crazy now? :) And I repeat what I said before. If you don't delete your Facebook app. They'll keep pulling stunts like these over and over again. It's very clear from their history that they have extremely little care for customer interests.

threejay 14y ago
user =/= customer
- rangibaby 14y ago
  User = product If x service is making money off their product (you, user) then you should really have at least some "rights". The key word being should.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    If you aren't buying a product, you are the product. That's worth drilling into your head. Yes, that means that User = product from HN's perspective, but I am willing to bet it is a lot more of a complex connection than it is with facebook ;-)
    - icebraining 14y ago
      I didn't buy my copy of Debian, yet they treat me better than many companies I pay. I pay for cable, yet I still get advertising. That "not paying means you're the product" is a nice sound bite, but it doesn't actually mean anything.
      - einhverfr 14y ago
        I never said that's a bad thing. But at least with the open source software I work with, if you use the software, great. Maybe you will come to me for services later. I wonder how many Debian-involved businesses have such a model. Paying for media is an interesting exception. Very often for newspapers, etc, you are both buying a product and becoming a product. But in the end it's a good warning to know the business model of those you get free stuff from.
        tomrod 14y ago
        The tm is "multi-sided market" in the economics literature. We're only beginning to figure them out.
      - genwin 14y ago
        It seems the "not paying means you're the product" is short for "not paying a for-profit company means you're the product".
  - pdonis 14y ago
    Why should users have rights in this situation, other than the right to stop using the service? I understand why it would be nice if they did, but why should they? Why is it am imperative?
    - btown 14y ago
      It's a de facto imperative for startups looking to build loyalty, but FB is far from a startup now. They can do whatever the hell they want and get away with it... for now.
    - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      It depends where you are but there are certain legal rights that no terms of use can waive. They're set up as a minimum standard of acceptable behaviour that someone should be able to expect by default and that there is no reason why a company shouldn't / can't adhere to. Generally they're around physical protection from harm, though they do extend to other things (including Data Protection in Europe). Why should these rights at least exist? Because (a) people can't be expected to take a detailed look at every product and service they might use to assess it fully, that would simply be too time consuming, so you set a basic standard for prevention of harm and (b) can you imagine what the likes of Facebook or Exxon or whoever might do without them.
      - pdonis 14y ago
        people can't be expected to take a detailed look at every product and service they might use to assess it fully, that would simply be too time consuming, so you set a basic standard for prevention of harm So basically, you're saying people should trade trust in one third party (the service provider) for trust in another third party (whoever sets and enforces the basic standard). I can understand why people may choose to do this (though in many cases I don't think the second third party is any more reliable than the first), but I don't see it as an improvement. I don't think FB cares about whatever legal standards are in place; to them that's just a cost of doing business. But they do care about losing users. can you imagine what the likes of Facebook or Exxon or whoever might do without them. Sure, and I can also imagine people not using FB or Exxon (many people boycotted Exxon for years after the Valdez spill, IIRC). Also, I can turn the question around: can you imagine what those who are trusted to enforce standards of behavior might do once they know the public trusts them and won't question what they do? How good a job did regulators do at enforcing standards of behavior on investment banks? And before you ask, I do not use FB, precisely because I don't trust them to take care of my data. And it's not just FB; I don't trust Google to take care of my data, which is why I don't use gmail, for example, or any other Google services except search and maps. I don't expect anyone to take care of my data unless I'm paying them, as a customer, to do that--and even then I watch them.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
This is about the other side of things. Everyone who had you as a Facebook friend and does still have the app, is now sending you emails that you're possibly not receiving. The problem is worse than you make it out to be. Deleting your whole account and manually telling people your email address was the only way to prevent this.
- dwc 14y ago
  Yes. I don't recall if it was that dust up or another one, but about a year ago I completely deleted my FB account. As noted above, because it was clear that this was a continuing pattern.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Xuzz 14y ago
The part about "Facebook sneaking through contacts and adding friends' numbers" isn't correct: the Facebook app has always had a pretty clear description about what would happen if contact sync (an optional feature) is enabled. For example, on iOS, it looked like this almost two years back: http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/iPhoneNumber.png http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/iPhoneNumber.png (as seen on this page from October 2010: http://www.marismith.com/facebook-phonebook-how-safe-your-cell-number/ http://www.marismith.com/facebook-phonebook-how-safe-your-ce...) I don't have any old screenshots of the Android version, but the current app is similar to the iOS screenshots above.
antidoh 14y ago
"The general consensus was that I was an alarmist doomsayer extremist exaggerating over nothing." And they'll still call you that. Facebook's hold is too great.

threejay 14y ago

user =/= customer

rangibaby 14y ago
User = product If x service is making money off their product (you, user) then you should really have at least some "rights". The key word being should.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  If you aren't buying a product, you are the product. That's worth drilling into your head. Yes, that means that User = product from HN's perspective, but I am willing to bet it is a lot more of a complex connection than it is with facebook ;-)
  - icebraining 14y ago
    I didn't buy my copy of Debian, yet they treat me better than many companies I pay. I pay for cable, yet I still get advertising. That "not paying means you're the product" is a nice sound bite, but it doesn't actually mean anything.
    - einhverfr 14y ago
      I never said that's a bad thing. But at least with the open source software I work with, if you use the software, great. Maybe you will come to me for services later. I wonder how many Debian-involved businesses have such a model. Paying for media is an interesting exception. Very often for newspapers, etc, you are both buying a product and becoming a product. But in the end it's a good warning to know the business model of those you get free stuff from.
      - tomrod 14y ago
        The tm is "multi-sided market" in the economics literature. We're only beginning to figure them out.
    - genwin 14y ago
      It seems the "not paying means you're the product" is short for "not paying a for-profit company means you're the product".
- pdonis 14y ago
  Why should users have rights in this situation, other than the right to stop using the service? I understand why it would be nice if they did, but why should they? Why is it am imperative?
  - btown 14y ago
    It's a de facto imperative for startups looking to build loyalty, but FB is far from a startup now. They can do whatever the hell they want and get away with it... for now.
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    It depends where you are but there are certain legal rights that no terms of use can waive. They're set up as a minimum standard of acceptable behaviour that someone should be able to expect by default and that there is no reason why a company shouldn't / can't adhere to. Generally they're around physical protection from harm, though they do extend to other things (including Data Protection in Europe). Why should these rights at least exist? Because (a) people can't be expected to take a detailed look at every product and service they might use to assess it fully, that would simply be too time consuming, so you set a basic standard for prevention of harm and (b) can you imagine what the likes of Facebook or Exxon or whoever might do without them.
    - pdonis 14y ago
      people can't be expected to take a detailed look at every product and service they might use to assess it fully, that would simply be too time consuming, so you set a basic standard for prevention of harm So basically, you're saying people should trade trust in one third party (the service provider) for trust in another third party (whoever sets and enforces the basic standard). I can understand why people may choose to do this (though in many cases I don't think the second third party is any more reliable than the first), but I don't see it as an improvement. I don't think FB cares about whatever legal standards are in place; to them that's just a cost of doing business. But they do care about losing users. can you imagine what the likes of Facebook or Exxon or whoever might do without them. Sure, and I can also imagine people not using FB or Exxon (many people boycotted Exxon for years after the Valdez spill, IIRC). Also, I can turn the question around: can you imagine what those who are trusted to enforce standards of behavior might do once they know the public trusts them and won't question what they do? How good a job did regulators do at enforcing standards of behavior on investment banks? And before you ask, I do not use FB, precisely because I don't trust them to take care of my data. And it's not just FB; I don't trust Google to take care of my data, which is why I don't use gmail, for example, or any other Google services except search and maps. I don't expect anyone to take care of my data unless I'm paying them, as a customer, to do that--and even then I watch them.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

This is about the other side of things. Everyone who had you as a Facebook friend and does still have the app, is now sending you emails that you're possibly not receiving. The problem is worse than you make it out to be. Deleting your whole account and manually telling people your email address was the only way to prevent this.

dwc 14y ago
Yes. I don't recall if it was that dust up or another one, but about a year ago I completely deleted my FB account. As noted above, because it was clear that this was a continuing pattern.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Xuzz 14y ago

The part about "Facebook sneaking through contacts and adding friends' numbers" isn't correct: the Facebook app has always had a pretty clear description about what would happen if contact sync (an optional feature) is enabled. For example, on iOS, it looked like this almost two years back: http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/iPhoneNumber.png http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/iPhoneNumber.png (as seen on this page from October 2010: http://www.marismith.com/facebook-phonebook-how-safe-your-cell-number/ http://www.marismith.com/facebook-phonebook-how-safe-your-ce...) I don't have any old screenshots of the Android version, but the current app is similar to the iOS screenshots above.

antidoh 14y ago

"The general consensus was that I was an alarmist doomsayer extremist exaggerating over nothing." And they'll still call you that. Facebook's hold is too great.