Slashdot Mirror
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.
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"
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.
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.
No, he can't do that because it would be a HIPAA violation, but just about anything else would be correct.
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.
No, he can't do that because it would be a HIPAA violation, but just about anything else would be correct.
Nonsense.
It *might* be a HIPAA violation for him to tell everyone he sold your kidney, but HIPAA has nothing at all to do with the waiver you signed allowing his doctors to swoop in and *take* your kidney.
HIPAA is about health information privacy and has nothing to do with the fact you clicked through a Kidney Sales Agreement form...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
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 quit Facebook (and deleted my account) several weeks ago - right after the stuff about their shadow profiles came out.
It sucks because Facebook can have its uses - it's definitely a much easier way to keep in contact with some of my friends and family that live across the US and in Europe. But, in the end, what Facebook is doing to its users just is too high a price for me to willingly pay.
What's interesting is it's been obvious for a while that Facebook is trending downward - it's the older folks (my peers) that are really keeping it going. Younger people (e.g. my daughter) mostly still have Facebook profiles, but it's no longer their primary sharing tool. Some have moved to Tumblr, some to other networks - but the tide turned a year or two ago. I'm sure Zuckerberg knew this when he was figuring out the optimal time to launch the IPO, and I'm sure it's why they're pushing harder and harder now. It's only a matter of time before they join MySpace.
#DeleteChrome
The shadow profile stuff came out much longer than several weeks ago. Provided is a slashdot link to a story almost 2 years old:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/18/1429223/facebook-is-building-shadow-profiles-of-non-users
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
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.
You forget, you don't control their ToS. If you don't agree, don't use it, period. What's repugnant about these changes is the fact that Facebook buries their opt-out settings or as the NYT reported, disables your ability to opt out. With the usual weasel-clause in most ToS for sites, "We reserve the right to change our ToS at any time without your consent..." you have little choice but to stop using them if you disagree. I think in the case of Facebook, that's something everybody should do, including Google+ although even Google is making it more difficult to get around that clap trap as well.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
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.
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
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.
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?
I'm talking about the more recent revelations that came out this past June - regarding how the "friend finder" was slurping up information like your friends cell phone numbers etc. and storing that in shadow profiles (which got exposed because of the Facebook bug in their profile download tool).
The existence of Facebook and Google+ shadow profiles has indeed been known for a while.
#DeleteChrome
Read up on the legal issue of a "battle of the forms".
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.
Makes me wish I still worked in radio. Back then, I had a clause in my contract stating that I could not allow my name, voice, or likeness to be used for promotion of any product, service, or organisation without the station's prior approval. Now *that* would be interesting to see FB's legal department deal with.
I'm sure there are lots of folks with FB pages who have similar, existing contractual agreements.
Cue the lawsuits in 3... 2... 1...
*places bag of popcorn in m-wave*
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I quit facebook after the Obama campaign revealed that they got special permission from FB to ignore its ToS and allow campaign workers to hoover their friend data and send it to the campaign for analysis. A very dirty trick, IMHO. The ToS basically means nothing, its assurances are meaningless.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
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.
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...
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