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> Facebook only knows what you tell it. Firstly, that's incorrect. Facebook also knows what other people tell it and what it is able to correlate from other da
by robert_tweed 12y ago
> Facebook only knows what you tell it.
Firstly, that's incorrect. Facebook also knows what other people tell it and what it is able to correlate from other data sources. To be fair to them, they've handled the issue with group photo tagging fairly well, but only after there was uproar about it.
They are in the business of collecting and monetising your data. That's fundamentally not in your interests and it's incredibly difficult to stop them from doing it, especially outside the EU. That is why a lot of people hate them.
- skizm 12y agoFacebook would know what other people tell it regardless of how much you use it anyway. It is the same with every other online service. Google knows more about you than Facebook. I guess since they provide more value people are less likely to complain.
- mapleoin 12y agoFriends can't tag me in photos on Facebook if I don't have an account.
- carlosdp 12y agoWhy is it "fundamentally not in my interest" for them to collect and monetize data? That's the price of using the service. Every business needs to get paid somehow.
- drdeca 12y agoThey afaik still collect data on people who don't use it. Paying for a service and not recieving the service is I would think "fundamentally not in one's interest". If one then cannot avoid that, then that would probably be potentially irritating. I'm not sure how much they collect from non users though. Don't they get things from cookies on embedded facebook comment forms?
- bgun 12y ago> They are in the business of collecting and monetising your data. That's fundamentally not in your interests I hate when phrases like this are thrown about; the collection of your data CAN be very much in your interests, and the monetization thereof makes it free, which is also clearly the preference of most. The fact that everyone I keep in touch with uses the same system has amazing utility for me. Privacy protections are important, but harping on them as if there is no conceivable personal benefit to data collection turns these discussions into partisan bickering that's hard to take seriously.
- robert_tweed 12y agoIt can be in your interests for businesses to know things about you. However it is always in your interests for you to be in control of your own personal data and how it is used, which is not how Facebook operates. Whether or not FB as a platform is useful is irrelevant to the issue of data ownership. Where people have a particular issue with FB, it is, ignoring Mark Zuckerberg's own statements, that as a business they are reliant on what you might call adversarial data collection: i.e., they will take whatever they can get, not just what you explicitly give them. Contrast that with say, Google, who have been heading in a similar direction for a while now, but they don't predicate their entire business model on it. If Google stopped collecting your data today they would still have a very viable business selling advertising based on search terms. If FB stopped collecting data, the company would shut down. Thus any utility you get from Facebook is being paid for by a specific model of data collection that happens to be contrary to your best interests. You might be happy with that trade-off but a lot of people aren't. I for one an unhappy with the fact they have become a defacto standard that's getting increasingly difficult to avoid.