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Facebook To Overhaul Data Use Policy
dryriver writes "The new Facebook advertising policy: 'Our goal is to deliver advertising and other commercial or sponsored content that is valuable to our users and advertisers. In order to help us do that, you agree to the following: You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.' — Facebook also made it clear that the company can use photo recognition software to correctly identify people on the network. It said: 'We are able to suggest that your friend tag you in a picture by scanning and comparing your friend's pictures to information we've put together from your profile pictures and the other photos in which you've been tagged.' — It [Facebook] said it was also clarifying that some of that information reveals details about the device itself such as an IP address, operating system or – surprisingly – a mobile phone number. The Register has asked Facebook to clarify this point as it's not clear from the revised policy wording if a mobile number is scooped up without an individual's knowledge or as a result of it being previously submitted by that person to access some of the company's services. Importantly, Facebookers are not required to cough up their mobile phone number upon registering with the service. At time of writing, Facebook was yet to respond with comment."
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-site-governance/section-by-section-summary-of-updates/10153200989785301
The post is pretty bad without a link to the actual updates. ./ has fallen a bit.
Hi, Mark Fucking Zuckerberg here. I own you're fucking asses, you pathetic like pukes. If I want to sell your left fucking kidney, I can do it because I'm Mark Fucking Zuckerberg and you're pathetic addicts.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How about a witty third post? :D
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
http://rt.com/news/facebook-profile-picture-recognition-208/
http://www.ibtimes.com/facebook-create-facial-recognition-database-profile-photos-1401665
Welcome to a wonderful facial recognition database for US users (vs privacy issues in Europe).
Try and forget the US government electronic surveillance program.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Is there still some private data that they are yet to make public? How about emails? Maybe those should be public too? Stupid FB.
First, that wasn't a discussion. Beyond that: we could discuss how this plays into Facebook's long-term prospects; how this plays into user's expectations; whether this sort of thing would be likely if Facebook wasn't public and had no aspirations to be public; whether this is actually legal and whether it should be legal -- for instance, changing terms to include your name and likeness in advertising would seem egregious if a brick and mortar store had that as a requirement for entering the premises; and probably plenty of other issues come to mind to other people.
Don't have that either.
Facebook really makes me want to move to a remote island and live off coconuts. Creepiest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Here's a real excerpt from my /etc/hosts file, saves me no end of trouble:
0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 facebook.com
0.0.0.0 www.static.ak.fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 static.ak.fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 www.login.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 login.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 www.fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 www.fbcdn.com
0.0.0.0 fbcdn.com
0.0.0.0 www.static.ak.connect.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 static.ak.connect.facebook.com
Anthropology suggests each of us normally has about half a dozen close friends at any one time. About that many friends make sense when you consider the emotional and temporal investments and returns. Facebook just makes no sense. It's like people so pathetic just getting noticed no matter the reason or the cost is some twisted form of self validation.
Nobody forced your friends to use it either, but no one is stopping them from using it either, and by some of their possible actions, you're using it whether you want to or not....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I wonder what would happen if you sent a nice letter to Facebook's CS department, copied to Legal, saying:
You have stated that you wish to use my likeness in commercial content that will earn you revenue. If you wish to do so, my standard rate is $10 per view of said likeness. You may not use my likeness without compensation to me. By using my likeness you agree to pay my standard rate for each view. If you do not wish to pay, you must refrain from using my likeness. By using my likeness you agree that the terms of this agreement and the rates stated therein apply to you, that you will pay them, that this agreement supersedes any and all prior agreements and that no future agreements may supersede this agreement without an express agreement in writing between myself and Facebook.
The Facebook users beware. Nobody forced you to use it.
That's the end of USEFUL discussion.
Facebook is reported to have been creating profiles for peoplel who have never signed up. http://www.zdnet.com/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-shadow-profiles-leak-in-bug-7000017167/
Yes, yes, and we'll continue to use fake pictures, fake names, and build a profile of lies because they can't really stop that either.
Facebook is a worthless social tool, there's no reason to be honest. Meanwhile Linked-In is a repository of highly accurate data but it's not a lot of fun, nor does it have the mindshare facebook has. Facebook needs a new gig, it has a lot of viewers, it has very little useful facts and if pushed, they'll find it becomes increasingly factless.
I'm not on Facebook, I never have been, and I never will be. I also have the magic ability to translate their legal garbage. Let me see...I think it's pronounced "We want to provide you with the best opportunity to MONEEEEYYYY!!!!!!" but that might be a letter or two off. Considering all circumstances, I believe that means I've done it. I win at Facebook! That's right, it was all an elaborate game that over a hundred million people lost at by being gullible and in denial. But nope, winner here!
Facebook for most people was a phase.I see more kids get over it earlier as their parents spend more time on it. Now companies are using it to try to reach a generation that is not on tv, and it me moving from a phase to a cost of doing business. No one forces you to cut out coupons to buy name brand products, but we do. It could be that facebook ends up being the broker of the kind of relationships that some people like to have with retail brands, in which case value will be added for some people. And the kids who like the freedom that facebooks gives them will not go away, just like when we smoked ciggarettes.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
All your face are belong to us
When I had my mother's phone download the Facebook app and set it up for her yesterday, the first thing it did upon login was pop up a screen with three choices -- to not import any contact info from her phone (synced with a Google account), to import all contact data she has for Facebook friends, or import all contact data to Facebook, period. It was quite clearly not offering to merely see which contacts were on Facebook or send out invites to those that weren't.
I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure it didn't offer to collect all data from her Google/Gmail contacts list when I last set it up for her several months ago... If I'm reading those choices correctly, it would mean that even if Facebook doesn't visibly plug the data into people's profiles, it would still be there for them to use behind the scenes. Obviously I told it to not import anything, but I really hope I misunderstood and leapt to the wrong conclusion.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
I can only assume that the iOS app is similar, but the Android app uploads not just your phone number (which is scraped without your explicit permission), but also your call history every time you log in.
Let me repeat that: Facebook uploads your entire call history every time you open their Android app.
Thanks for the (interesting and scary) link - but that isn't quite what that article says. According to that article, Facebook is compiling shadow profiles of signed-up users to accumulate information they expressly did not add to their public profile, such as phone numbers and email addresses. (And who knows what else...)
Another reason not to do Facebook, though, so I won't. I do maintain an interest, however, because my wife is an active FB user, on the grounds that she says she never posts anything that could be useful for any kind of miscreant. She is not a techie, though, and I have trouble explaining to her that it isn't as simple as that.
Our goal is to deliver advertising and other commercial or sponsored content
Plain speaking is such a wonderful thing isn't it?
It's like a blend of 1984 and Brave New World. Just like 1984 they will be monitoring you through your real life telescreen but like Brave New World it won't actually be forbidden not to have one, but the people will no longer have the motivation to think or act outside what they were indoctrinated to do.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
They eventually will, it's cheaper than them providing their own monitoring equipment/bugs.
What you need to remember is this : half the population has an I.Q. of 100 or lower. This means that half the population is not very smart, to express it in charitable terms. A lot of behavior which doesn't seem to "make sense" can be therefore explained by the fact that a very large number of people are just plain idiots.
Your understanding of IQ, social interactions and your purported hiring practices match up really well.
First off... That 100 average IQ is a normalized value.
It will never change, no matter how many "stupid" people or geniuses are out there. 100 will always be average.
Now, thing with bell-shaped curves is, they have this nasty habit of being evenly distributed on both sides.
Also, there's this thing of them having 95% of all values within 2 sigma - which are in this case conveniently situated around that 100 IQ average.
What that means in real life is that 95% of people in the world fall within 2 sigma from 100 IQ.
I.e. Almost everyone is within IQ 70 and IQ 130.
Leaving ~2.5% people with IQ over 130, and just as much of those with the IQ of under 70.
Now here's the fun part. It's a bit counter intuitive, so try to keep up.
First of all, those with IQ below 70 don't really count. We're talking "definite feeble-mindedness" there.
Those people are not what you can in any way call active members of the society.
Then comes that second sigma - those falling in that group between 70 and 85.
Within those 15 IQ points falls 14.591% of humanity. And guess what? Most of those don't count either!
Cause those ranging from 70 to 85 IQ points are what we call "borderline deficient", "borderline impaired or delayed", "well below average" or "borderline mentally retarded".
Again... this being the place on the scale where those number really count, about two thirds of those people are closer to retarded than to plain old "stupid".
You're pretty much not interacting with them online, and very likely not in real life either.
Which leaves us with 95 - 9.7 - 47.5 = 37.5% of humanity that falls within 80 - 100 IQ range, which you might call "stupid people".
In all fairness, actual number of "stupid people" is closer to 30%, as the closer you get to that average of 100 IQ, the more people there are and there is a greater chance that many of them are closer to 100 than measured.
Now, one third of humanity MAY seem like a "very large number of people" - but they are actually a MINORITY compared to the 50% of humans who are of ABOVE AVERAGE intelligence.
So... umm... yeah... Your "arguments" about all those idiots? More like arrogance.
And that's more dangerous than plain old low intelligence cause it masquerades as wisdom creating that warm feeling of being right - even when you're completely clueless.
BTW, love the way you managed to weave in a (completely meaningless and valueless) comparison of YOUR company with those on F500 list though nobody asked for it AND though you're posting anonymously.
Arrogance will also leave you safely inside your cocoon of cluelessness regarding human interactions beyond those that you can hire out or were born into.
Or you would have figured out or guessed by know that people tend to have these groups of people called families, friends, acquaintances, school friends etc.
None of whose IQ or personal preferences or simply lack of paranoia regarding privacy they can't control nor can they just cut out those persons from their life or ignore them when they reappear in their life.
And many of those people just happen to find social media like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. as highly useful/entertaining/practical/fun.
And if you're really limiting your own pool of potential talent by adding such an arbitrary limitation as you say you do - you might as well be chucking out all people who's favorite color is blue.
Or green. Or whatever.
But hey... Do keep up with that.
I'm certain your competition has nothing against the idea of you limiting your own options.
I sure love it.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Hi AC try http://prism-break.org/
Under Social networking the site lists https:buddycloud.com, https://diasporafoundation.org/ http://friendica.com/ http://movim.eu/ http://pump.io/ and the https://tent.io/ protocol.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's sadly the case...
One of my friends has a wife who decided it'd be cute to post pictures of me on her Facebook account despite my telling her plainly that I didn't want that to happen. I got the pleasure of sitting and watching her do it, and giggle about it throughout my protests.
Nothing can be done to stop it. It's not like I'm going to steal her camera and delete her pictures. So, I'm in their system, despite being really well known as the paranoid "they're out to get me" guy to pretty much everyone who knows me.
No matter how careful we are individually, the ignorance of others certainly can affect us strongly these days...
Meanwhile Linked-In is a repository of highly accurate data
Well other than all the made-up skills that people can assign to you without your involvement.
'King of France', 'Maximum Awesome', 'Knife Skills'...
Why am I being endorsed for skills and expertise I do not claim on my profile?
Read up on the legal issue of a "battle of the forms".
Black electricians tape?
Picasa itself will do that same thing locally. I have all my photos taken from my DSLR in folders that Picasa can sort (yeah, it sucks for editing some of the multiple exposure, but it's nice for sorting the finished ones). The local app recognized family members from several angles, but if I filled in any of that information (by relation, ooo, google knows that guy's name is 'dad', scary!) it didn't do anything with it. It just let me sort the pictures in a different way. I could pull just pictures of certain people, I could get rid of certain faces (who cares which photos my art professor showed up in when I was taking photos for a behind the scenes look at an exhibit, sort those by folder/date instead) and I could merge certain faces (yup, those two faces are the same person, get smarter please).
At no point did it suddenly start adding public tags to photos I uploaded to PicasaWeb, or send skynet to kill my family.
If you're not paying for a product, you ARE the product. I'm quitting today.
"I'm not in the business. I am the business."
FTFY
Closed my Facebook account mere minutes ago. Side note: a friend of mine closed his a while ago and the captcha he had to type was "Treachery"
So, I'm in their system, despite being really well known as the paranoid "they're out to get me" guy to pretty much everyone who knows me.
And this is why privacy/data protection laws need to be updated to have far more teeth than they have today. When you have an organisation as influential as Facebook and it is actively encouraging other people to do things like providing your picture or your phone number with or without your knowledge or consent, any argument that some use of that data about you is permitted under their ToS has no weight if you're not a Facebook user yourself, but it seems clear that they're storing the data anyway. Actually, I'm not sure how that's not already illegal, at least within the EU, but the regulators don't seem in any hurry to take action and even if they do the penalties are little more than the change in Zuckerberg's pocket.
FWIW, I am similar to you, being well known among my friends as someone who doesn't want to share his personal details with Facebook. I feel sufficiently strongly about this that in the situation you described I would have made it very clear to my "friend" and his wife that I would no longer consider them friends if they thought it was funny to violate my privacy in that way, but then again I'm also confident that I would never have to go that far with anyone I consider a friend in the first place. I'm sorry if you're not always in such a happy position with the company you keep.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
ask her how she'd feel if you took a photo of her, printed it with her name, address, phone number, email address and any other personal information you can think of, and then posted hundreds of copies of it on bus shelters, lamp posts, walls, bulletin boards, etc all over town.
then tell her that that is exactly what she's done to you.
if you're feeling really pissed off, don't pose it as a question, just go ahead and do it.
Can't say anything about social networking, but I do endorse Retroshare as an IM/mail program.
...and FB's NSA overlords sit back smiling
So, I'm in their system, despite being really well known as the paranoid "they're out to get me" guy to pretty much everyone who knows me.
FWIW, I am similar to you, being well known among my friends as someone who doesn't want to share his personal details with Facebook. I feel sufficiently strongly about this that in the situation you described I would have made it very clear to my "friend" and his wife that I would no longer consider them friends if they thought it was funny to violate my privacy in that way,
Empty threat. You cannot unfriend them without a Facebook account.
Well go ahead and post her picture and real phone number to an adult dating site whilst she watches you.
For bonus points giggle about it (in a mocking impression of her) whilst you're doing it.
See how much she likes that.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Am I the only one that notices that the Facebook iPhone app reads your location every time you use it too? Why wasn't this mentioned? Presumably they are just innocently trying to give me the best location-specific advertising, but their reasons don't concern me. They know where you are whenever you use the app.
...
Nothing can be done to stop it. It's not like I'm going to steal her camera and delete her pictures. So, I'm in their system, despite being really well known as the paranoid "they're out to get me" guy to pretty much everyone who knows me.
No matter how careful we are individually, the ignorance of others certainly can affect us strongly these days...
Threaten to sue the person who posted your photo without your signing a release. Make it expensive for individuals to violate your privacy. Spread the word on Facebook and elsewhere that destroying the privacy of individuals is a potentially costly exercise. Learn from the MPAA/RIAA and other intellectual content cartels that using your image or quoting you on FB without a release is costly. I charge $100 per IP address that could potentially view my image and given that IPV4 has 4.3 billion addresses... (I can hardly wait for IPV6.)
No this is not an idle threat. Given the US's primary industry (lawsuits), its only a matter of time before you'll have to buy Facebook insurance to cover the possibility that you'll accidentally post something that could be taken as defamatory, could infringe on MPAA/RIAA rights or infringe on a person's privacy or defame their character. I suspect when the average tweet costs $40 in legal fees, Facebook will die quietly.
Explain to that former friend that he and his wife are no longer welcome at your house and you will not be going to theirs as long as he's married to this nasty person.
For all the kneejerk 'Google is Evil' memes that flare up whenever it is revealed how they read your email, etc., Google has been pretty consistent about their business model. They gather info on your habits and use it to present targeted ads *to you*. This has proven to be an effective form of advertisement (in search, at least), and has made Google lots of dough without selling your info directly to anyone - or even getting too intrusive with their advertising (and you can use AdBlock, if that's too much). Creepy? Kind of. But it's an acceptable tradeoff for most people in exchange for the free services.
Facebook's model has some similarities, but they are much freer with direct publication of your info. Some of that is inherent to their service - after all, you're putting the stuff up there to be public to some extent at least. But their means of monetizing your info are less clear than Google's. The idea that they would use your image to endorse products to other people without your express permission is way over the line. I suspect that inline ads on the facebook page (a la Google) just aren't cutting it as a business model, since those ads probably aren't very effective. Google has the advantage of presenting ads when you're actually looking to buy something. This can even be helpful at times, though you're obviously not getting a neutral selection of results - in the paid ones, at least.
For most 'free' internet services, we're still in the phase where venture capital is filling in for a viable business model. And for the ones relying purely on advertising, most of them will never pan out. Then what? Another wave of over-hyped services, or a less appealing (or less free) internet that is actually self-sustaining.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I know there are several alternatives to Facebook. The only problem is: no one I know uses them. The reason I stay on Facebook is because my friends and acquaintances are all there. If there was some mass exodus to another social network, I'd be happy to join it. Until then, however, my leaving by myself will only leave me feeling isolated online.
Not all of my friends are computer savvy and really only know what the mainstream Internet has, and aren't really able or willing to understand the rest of the social networking platforms out there, and so I'm socially stuck with Facebook. It's easy for a Forever-alone Nerd-troll to tell me what I think and should do regarding Facebook, but honestly, I'm able to have friends who don't know their HTTP from their FTP and don't particularly care about the hip new social networking platforms.
Aside: you know what there isn't? A public service campaign to introduce the masses to Facebook alternatives. THAT would be more effective than wasting time telling other people what they should do with their social network on an Internet forum.
~Jarmihi
I'm only friends with two people, but I have dozens of bands and band members' accounts in my news feed.
Then you may want to go back to MySpace. I hear they are ditching the failed attempt at being a Facebook clone and are going back to their roots as a music lover's haven.
Only criminals* buy electrical tape.
*and state licensed electricians - you do have your license papers right?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
A photo posted on facebook doesn't automatically provide
Did you miss the part about facial recognition? Or perhaps the numerous times Facebook has been caught using their cookies to track *everyone* even when you're not logged into Facebook or even a friggin member?
Facebook's entire business plan is to link data to actual people. This gives them the face to do it even more.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
People endorse me for skills that I have that I may not necessary want to be known for because they are less lucrative, or pigeon hole me in to a job role that is being offshored (i.e. board design/system engineering). Yet they are factual and I spent a hunk of my life doing those things. If the economy takes a dump perhaps I'd do those things again until I could find something with a future. But as with any career, what one did in the past is likely not what one wants to do in the future, and you shape that by targeting your resume and skills. It is factual, but of all the true things that can be said, only those few that serve the need are selected.
Generally I dislike the "endorse" feature, and the "recommendation" feature, it invites dishonesty and back scratching. I refuse to use either one.
I suspect that I could have truly bogus information, such as being the King of France, removed. I have not had that problem, most of my work acquaintances take this sort of thing seriously (unlike my facebook friends). Fortunate, as being guillotined isn't really good for growth.
Are you kidding me? "There's nothing I can do about it"? Sure there is. First, she (or they) are no longer your friends; you make it clear to them that ignoring your wishes in the matter is the cause. Second, you inform them that if they don't remove the photos, there will be legal action compelling them to do so. If they do not comply then you get a lawyer to send them correspondance explaining to them that they must or there will be consequences. If they still don't you get a court order compelling them. You have rights, your privacy is valuable and important, and no one should be allowed to trample on those.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It depends. I had a party at my house once, and someone posted photos to Facebook from their phone, tagging my house as a location. I have never been able to remove this. Even flagging the photos doesn't remove the "check in" as my house as a public location. Trying to complain doesn't work, since my house isn't actually associated with me, according to Facebook, I am not the owner of this "venue". So, despite me never telling facebook my address, and removing all location data from everything I share, Facebook now can associate me with an address.
The problem with things like Facebook, is that you have no power over what others can do with your information. You can abstain from using it, or use it as responsibly as possible, and it doesn't matter once someone posts something about you.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Anything big enough to be a relevant general-use competitor will have a difficult time resisting the "suggestions" made by the NSA that "it would be for the best" if the data were made available to the government. You could easily set up a restricted access Word Press blog on your own server and give your friends author access, though. Then you can all write about your days on your own site, get emails when new posts are made, and generally keep in touch without everything being logged.
Or set up Majordomo and email each other. Or whatever else. ...Assuming you can set up good enough encryption, anyway. Otherwise, Prism has your number anyway. :)
you have no clue what you're talking about.
there are numerous ways they can and do associate your name with your other personal info - without you having to enter any of it yourself, and without you even needing to have a facebook account. starting with:
1. your name. it's in the tagged photo of you that was uploaded.
2. someone with your name, phone number, address etc in their phone contact list and the facebook app installed - the idiot who posted the photo is a likely candidate.
facebook may flag that info as 'tentative, not confirmed 100%' but they still have it. the more people who have you in their contacts list, especially if they are connected on facebook with either you or the photo-uploader, the higher an accuracy score it will get.
additional confirmation can come from many other sources, including public data like electoral rolls and phone books, private databases like subscription lists of magazines and newspapers, information-sharing deals with credit reference agencies,direct marketing companies, etc and hoovering up any information supplied if anyone in your household has been ignorant or stupid enough to enter competitions[1] or store "loyalty" programs - these latter two were the primary ways marketing scum built personal profiles on individuals before facebook.
there's nothing really new about what facebook's doing except the scale and reach and intrusiveness of it. even the hordes of idiots not only willing but eager to supply personal information is old-hat. it used to be possible to avoid much of it simply by choosing not to enter competitions or give your information away - now the scum can get your info from people you know - friends, family, colleagues, co-workers, acquaintances. and they can do it whether those contacts know about it or not.
google has done the same, and owning the android platform (and their app store) just makes it easier for them. they *stole* my phone number out of my android phone or from the contact list of someone who knows me. i know this because I ignored their request for my phone number for over a year (they asked on the rare occassions i actually logged in to my rarely used gmail account). they stopped asking, and one day i noticed they had my phone number associated with my gmail account - a complaint and demand to remove it was completely ignored.
google also has access to your android phone/tablet's GPS data - they know where you spend your time, where you live, where you work, where you travel, what route you take, what shops you enter or walk past.
as does Apple if you have an ipad/iphone.
as does facebook if you have their app installed on your phone or tablet.
WTF do you think so many shitty apps demand access to your phone state and identity, full network access, and gps data? it's so they can spy on you, you fucking moron.
and you can't even own or use an android phone or iphone without signing up for an account and giving at least an email address....well, technically you can with android if you work hard at it, but you're losing much of the functionality that makes buying a smartphone worthwhile.
As usual, the replies have missed the point ..... slash-dot!
Face Book shut down the Social Fixer page accsuing it of being spam. Could it be that they didn't pay the troll? FB can change its revenue strategy and start charging more and more people to promote their pages, and shoot themselves in the foot.
Social fixer is a Javascript and CSS app that tried to fix the numerous flaws of FB's default UI. It is based on quicksand provided by FB jerking everybody around. That can be fixed by defunding FB and forcing unbundling of the UI and CMS from the friend's list, and negating FB's business strategy.
I think that the recent changes at FB show that they are struggling with their business model, and that possibly it will fail soon. We can hope, as it will allow someone else to do it better.