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24-Year-Old Asks Facebook For His Data, Gets 1,200 PDFs
chicksdaddy writes "Be careful of what you ask for. That's a lesson Max Schrems of Vienna, Austria learned the hard way when he sent a formal request to Facebook for a copy of every piece of personal information that the social network had collected on him, as required under European law. After a wait, the 24-year-old law student got what he was seeking: a CD with all his data stored on it — 1,222 files in all. The collection of PDFs was roughly the length of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, but told a more mundane story: a record of Schrems' years-long relationship with the world's largest social network, including reams of data he had deleted. Now Schrems is pushing Facebook to disclose even more of what it knows."
It should be illegal for these companies to keep user generated content once the user deletes it.
Because if at first you don't succeed, ask for even more pdfs O.O
Sounds like he's doing this for attention...
Sure, a flood of data looks mundane, but combing it with the right filters probably tells lots of interesting stuff, like the DNA of relationships and interests. I can only hope mine is utterly meaningless. I've tried very hard to ensure that eventuality.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A database dump?
This popped up in European news 4 months ago. Facebook meanwhile no longer answers such requests in time. Just search Google News for his name, and you will find plenty of information about the case.
This article's summary is rather baited. I fail to see how see how this guy "learned the hard way". It's not like they rolled up with a truck and dumped reams of paper in the middle of his living room. He received a CD with files in an easily searchable format. I'm sure he knew going into it he wasn't going to read through it all in a night, and probably doesn't contain any surprises. If anything, Facebook "learned the hard way", now that they have to divulge the massive amount of data that they store, upon request, which means they must employ people to do this. Are the costs incurred outweighed by any profit produced by hoarding this particular information?
..and this is why I don't use my real name anywhere online that I can possibly get away with it, or use any personally-identifiable information about me on any social networking. Enjoy your false, worthless data, Facebook.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
News Flash. Facebook has a record of all the information you willingly give to Facebook.
I find it rather funny, that people get all worked up because facebook has all of the data that people happily give them.
Why is any of this a surprise? People happily hop on facebook and narrate their lives, a treasure trove of marketing data volentarily handed over, and you expect somehow that it's private or safe?
The problem isn't facebook, or the other social networks. PEBKAC.
Why, you yourself made this data available to another person the moment it was uploaded to a service you do not control.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
"Facebook, it seems, doesn't think much of the Delete key and continued to hold copies of the data on its servers."
This really shouldn't come as a surprise for anyone here.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
I've worked for a number of tech companies that dont actually delete anything, the simply mark the record "deleted" in the database. It's a pretty common practice that didn't really ever get talked about until it came to light that Facebook did it. Let's face it, once something is out there, it never ever really goes away, whether it be on Facebook or somewhere else,
...if it had talked about this story before to know that it did already:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/16/0239232/facebook-holding-back-personal-data
And yes, it links TFAs that mention this story already.
If so many people are concerned with their privacy, yet still want a Social Network; why not create your own website. Using HTML5 or whatever other fad code of today, creating your own fully linked website with interactive media is almost as easy as creating a facebook profile. With the searching power of google finding all your friends is just as easy. Chatting, use irc. facebook as brought nothing new to the area of personal web presence, except it's almost idiot-proof, and, oh yeah. FREE! Now that the dust has settled on this fashionable form of web presence, it's not so amazing to those who don't want everyone in the world with a PC or smartphone to have a direct portal to their info. Kids are killing themselves over this info, crimes are being committed. People, it's time to take responsibility for your own actions and get a clue. If you don't know how the internet works, GET OFF-LINE! Anyone can do anything with a computer. Until there is some kind of world internet police, it's free game. This is what makes it so special. Stop whining and get informed. Don't tell others what to do with their companies, your not paying for anything. On the web, all you have to do and compete. Make something better. Then watch as the users tell you what to do.Best part is, you can ignore them too. You have the power to control your "on-line avatar", whatever, but you cant sit on your hands and let others do it. Get coding!
Now ask yourself one question: might 1.2k pages not be a little bit excessive after all?
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Everyone that Facebook keeps data. Its obvious that they do. The thing that astonishes me is the amount of data collected from one person over one year.
Now Ive had my account with Facebook for several years. How much data do they have on me. Im actually interested in finding out.
1200 PDF pages does not necessarily mean 1200 pages of useful data. What kind of format is it in? One line for every thing he liked? Are there lines of XML tags around everything? Are his friends posts to him part of 'his' personal data in these files?
Not that I expect Facebook to make it nice and presentable to this guy. He got his data dump and Facebook is now putting the onus on him to sort through it and raise any further requests.
When you post links and images and status updates, it isn't just your information, it's broadcasted information. If a bunch of people are tagged in a photo you posted, it isn't really your photo anymore. This is kind of the nature of the internet. If someone really doesn't want something shared, they can e-mail it or throw it on a file server and give someone a link to it.
Social networking sites and search engines are used for data collection and data mining. I've been telling people for years that their activity will be monitored, captured and tracked yet people sre still willing to tradeoff their privacy for convenience. Ignorance knows no bounds.
Has anyone seen the feature, "One year ago you posted" on Facebook. Maybe that's what the data is used for. But I'm glad I don't post anything too private on Facebook.
I'm more interested in seeing the CD contents of someone that has never intentionally used Facebook--someone like me.
no one makes you use facebook, if you are dumb enough to just give your information to strangers maybe you deserve it
Yeah, I read it incorrectly the first time too, but there's an S.
...that even when you delete something off of your hard drive, technically it's not deleted....this isn't anything new.
It's very simple, if you don't like the company's policies, just don't use the system. Think of Facebook as something close to a community loudspeaker or a local newspaper. Once you post stuff there it is part of Facebook records, your friends records and so on. After all the system is free to use.
Don't write/post it if you don't want it repeated/saved/transmitted to aliens. No one is forcing you to use FB.
.
(1) that people are surprised at the amount of data that Facebook collects about your private lives, and
(2) that Facebook"s data on this person was only a CD-ROM's worth. I would opine that they are holding back.
His point is perfectly valid. Wikipedia is, for example, all about version control. Somebody defaces a page? Revert.
There is a clear difference here. Wikipedia tells you that's the deal up front. You don't have to file a foia request to find out.
What about when someone violates facebook's TOS and uploads a photo of someone else without their consent? Is the photo removed then? I know people who don't even have facebook accounts, yet have had photos uploaded of themselves. When asked, the photo was removed. Since facebook doesn't actually remove the data, but instead just removes it from the display. This person may still be photographed and tagged in facebook's archive of data.
The rant opens with a line usually reserved for cases where people are inundated by physical mail as a result of some action. In this case, the guy got one CD with a small number of files that are easily searched by computer in a common and well documented format.
Big whoop. He asked for data and he got it. And apparently after he should have been careful what he wished for, he now wants more?
Typical slashdot "word rapist" (labeling them editors is an insult to humanity itself) scaremongering.
Be careful peeps, if you go to a restaurant and ask for a drink, you might GET it!!! Scary!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I thought this was common knowledge. Heard about it on a Google Tech Talk. They store your data append-only.
What format did he expect it in? Is he pissed off he had to download a PDF reader or something? I think it seems reasonable.
Also, who do you think gave Facebook this information in the first place? The same douchebag who wasted their time ordering the info. I hope they billed him for their time.
>>It should be illegal for these companies to keep user generated content once the user deletes it.
This data does not belong any more to the user. The user donated this data which is now the property of FB.
aaaaaaa
I'd be more concerned to inadvertently find out that my life actually was/is not worth living.
I believe refraining from using facebook eliminates the inadvertent component but, more importantly, I am convinced that without facebook my life is more worth living.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Finally, someone that gets it.
Does this not bother anyone?
Am I just crazy or is this the worst thing to happen since the Patriot Act?
Maybe I am paranoid, But you know what they say. "It's not paranoia if the are after you!"
In this case they want to know everything about you. What, you think they are not sharing this with the government? You don't think the guys in the basement at Langley are not playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon except it's not Kevin Bacon, it's Hussain, Bin Laden, Assad, the serial killer next door and YOU!
Someone write the movie. The Social Experiment.
What steps or rather how difficult it was to get them to produce that information. I'd particularly be interested to know how they verified the person requesting the data was actually him.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I learned that the hard way in the 1990s. You dont know who is copying what how many times. The best you could hope is that its considered too insignificant for the search engines to find it.
I believe that if you people support that the Internet should be without restrictions and regulations, then you should also be aware that the data you publish online can be used in any way. So decide what you want.
Burning bad bridges is a good thing. Used to be the class slut but cleaned up her act later or used to be a loser but finally buckled down once he left his dysfuncitonal family and friends. Bridges burn both ways too.
1. join facebook
2. enter tons of personal information
3. be surprised its archived
seriously is the general populace actually getting stupider
Four-digit slashdot ID. Recognize.
I agree, it should be your choice. However, I'm one who really, really likes the idea of keeping an edit history for posts if one so chooses.
And I can understand why Facebook doesn't actually delete the data, but just flags it as hidden/deleted -- it's a real bear to update and nullify all the object id references to a post in such a mammoth system. There are links all over the place from people whose "feed" pages may reference your post. There are forwards and reposts of your post which create a commented link to your post -- does your right to delete your post mean you have the right to delete the posts of people who've commented on it?
Given that some of the content links could be in archived databases instead of mainline storage or cache, updating them could be virtually impossible.
Canada is facing the same issue with it's Long Gun Registry being shut down by Harper's Conservative government -- the data is cross-linked throughout government and law enforcement system, with over a decade of archived databases referencing the LGR databases. Truly deleting the data requires restoring the archived external databases, updating their contents to remove the references, exporting the database for an updated backup, and archiving it for storage.
Now there's the cascade effect -- any references to the archive disks now have to be updated to reference the new archive database content instead of the original.
They're currently expecting it to take over FIVE YEARS to purge that one database, and it's pitifully small compared to Facebook or Google.
Never mind the potential legal issues of external and archive systems that are mandated to be write-only by government legislation, and which have to be retained for 7-10 years in many cases.
Realistically, a versioning system or flagging content as deleted instead of purging it is the only option available for large systems that maintain historical data of any significant size.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.