Facebook Patented Making NSA Data Handoffs Easier

theodp writes "In June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blasted 'outrageous press reports' about the PRISM surveillance program, denying that Facebook was ever 'part of any program to give the U.S. or any other government direct access to our servers.' What Zuckerberg didn't mention, and what the press overlooked, is that the USPTO granted Facebook a patent in May for its Automated Writ Response System. Like the NSA-enabling systems described by the NY Times on the same day Zuckerberg cried foul, the patent covers technical methods to more efficiently share the personal data of users with law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in response to lawful government requests via APIs and secured portals installed at company-controlled locations. 'While handing over data in response to a legitimate FISA request is a legal requirement,' the Times noted, 'making it easier for the government to get the information is not, which is why Twitter could decline to do so.'"

Comments

What an asshole

[Enter the Shoggoth]

'nuf said

Re:What an asshole

[ifiwereasculptor]

Can't you see he's fighting for our freedoms? That patent is just the start, there are plenty more in the works. Eventually, they'll cover every way of handing the government information, and no one else will be able to do it. It's genius.

Re:What an asshole

[gbjbaanb]

I think you're being too lenient toward him..
in the future, everyone will still have to hand the government information, only now Fuckerberg will demand a licence payment each time.

Re:What an asshole

[bill_mcgonigle]

nah, this is great - patent all the methods for complying with illegal NSA spying to make sure that other companies can't do the same. It's an effective attack limiter to only one company per valid attack.

I'm pretending the NSA won't illegally coerce the companies into illegally violating the patents for the illegal surveillance they're coercing the companies into doing. Oh, sorry, that's the FBI, isn't it?

Re:What an asshole

[GameboyRMH]

Let's not forget, this is the same guy who signed up for Google+ the day it launched and then closed his account because he "didn't want Google tracking him" or something like that.

He mocks the stupidity of the Average Joe right in front of their faces and they never catch on.

Re:What an asshole

[neoform]

>He mocks the stupidity of the Average Joe right in front of their faces and they never catch on.

You realize this supports his claim.

Re:What an asshole

[formfeed]

Like

At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg ...

[Taco Cowboy]

... and I am glad I never waste any of my time in fb

Yest another reason

[Cornwallis]

to avoid F***book.

Re:Yest another reason

[clickety6]

to avoid F***book.

FISABook?

Re:Yest another reason

[cffrost]

to avoid F***book.

I haven't heard that one... Farcebook, Facecrook... Fuck(erberg's)book, obfuscated with self-censorship?

Mark Fuckerberg's scheme is to collect billions of dollars worth of marks' PII, then pimp it all out to his customers (NSA, FBI, FSB, corporate propagandists, your worst enemy, etc.). The mark's cut of the money made from selling his or her PII amounts to some zero dollars and cents per year, plus inundation with targeted corporate propaganda meant to manipulate the mark's decisions/habits/behaviors, and the creation of opportunities for security/privacy/identity exploitations. Maybe I'm just totally bananas, but this arrangement strikes me as a sucker deal. Hence, I consider "Facecrook" to be the scheme's most fitting name.

I don't need any reason not to be a mark for Fuckerberg and his Facecrook — I can't conceive a reason to become one in the first place. The only I can think up for this scheme is to sign up one's enemies.

Re:Yest another reason

[cffrost]

Faustbook!

That'd work, excepting one small detail: Unlike Faust's trading of his soul in order to gain knowledge, Faustbook accepts souls* in order for Fuckerberg to gain complete knowledge over about his victims. Worse than a Faustian bargain, it is — just as I opined above — a straight-up sucker deal.

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." —Cardinal Richelieu

* My secular interpretation of "souls" in this context: Anything given up that can bite one in the ass minutes or decades later — (e.g., compromising pics (e.g., close proximity to a possible water-pipe (used to smoke drugs!) or large container of part-ethanol), criminal admissions, evidence of personal backstabbing or betrayal, conduct unbecoming a wage slave (a vulnerability especially to those in Right-to-be-canned—just-because states and those deprived of adequate trade union protection), letting it slip that oneself is an Arab/Muslim in the US with an interest in science/engineering/photography/aircraft, disclosing a health problem, making a joke involving guns, bombs, and/or airports, expressing an interest in gunpowder/backpacking/pressure-cooking, discussing an interest or activity that's "innocent" today but targeted by over-funded TLAs looking for "terrorists" (or whoever's on the "threat" menu) another day, when they come looking... etc.).

Re:Yest another reason

[KiloByte]

I for one resolve the "***" to "aeces". Which is still an insult to honest fertilizer.

Legitimate FISA request

[Anonymous Coward]

legitimate FISA request

By their very nature they fail to be legitimate in my eyes.

Re:Legitimate FISA request

[mrbester]

There's also an interesting meaning of the word 'legal' of which I was previously unaware as being remotely legitimate.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Enter the Shoggoth]

... and I am glad I never waste any of my time in fb

Indeed - the ony thing more amazing than people putting personal shit up on a public website is people putting personal shit up on a public website that's owned and run by a known sociopath.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Mitreya]

... and I am glad I never waste any of my time in fb

Don't worry -- at least half a dozen of your friends are working hard to make sure you are not forgotten (posting and tagging fotos, marking "I know this person from..." questions, etc.)

Ok this just in

[Nov8tr]

If Mark Zuckerberg isn't Satan, he is at least a close relative.

Re:Ok this just in

[mrbester]

He's the bastard son. As if Satan has any other kind.

Re:Ok this just in

[Kiuas]

Satan? Seriously?

You equate the one character from the Bibble that had the balls to stand up against the divine tyranny to this Mark Zuckerberg? That's offensive to Satan.

In all seriousness, as an atheist I don't much care about the feelings of imaginary beings, but looking at the bibble as a story and comparing the characters, there is 1 divine "big brother", who watches everything you do and one guy who tells you to oppose such foolishness.

To quote great speech by Al Pacino ('John Milton'), whose in fact Satan (in the movie), in The Devil's Advocate

John Milton: Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off! He's a tight-ass! He's a SADIST! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER!

Kevin Lomax: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", is that it?

John Milton: Why not? I'm here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I'm a fan of man! I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist."

Just sayin: you should reconsider things if you think satan's the bad guy in the """good""" book.

Re:Ok this just in

[Nov8tr]

You're preachin to the choir. :D My point had nothing to do with "reality" and everything to do with humor. :D

Doesn't matter - FB has entered a death spiral

[korbulon]

As go the teenagers, so goes the industry.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/10/teenagers-messenger-apps-facebook-exodus

With all this social networking shit, perception is key: once FB is no longer consider cool or the "in-thing", it's fucked. Like Myspace fucked.

Re:Doesn't matter - FB has entered a death spiral

[rvw]

As go the teenagers, so goes the industry.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/10/teenagers-messenger-apps-facebook-exodus

With all this social networking shit, perception is key: once FB is no longer consider cool or the "in-thing", it's fucked. Like Myspace fucked.

Unless the "old" people (30-50) really don't care about what those kids do, as long as they have a means of keeping in touch with the rest of the family. And if they do, the kids will complain, but will stay as well, although not as active.

Re:Doesn't matter - FB has entered a death spiral

[peragrin]

the trick is only active accounts generate ad revenue. without people Facebook has nothing to sell(you) to its customers(ad companies)

Re:Doesn't matter - FB has entered a death spiral

[korbulon]

The problem that Facebook faces is that much of its current stock price critically hinges on the belief that it is a "growth" stock. Look at some of the numbers ( http://www.thestreet.com/story/12043406/1/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-facebook.html ):

The stock is ridiculously priced at 208 times trailing earnings, 48 times 2014 consensus earnings estimates, more than 10 times book value, and 18 times revenue.

Once investors realize that FB is no longer growing - especially that young eyeballs and thumbs have moved elsewhere - they will also realize that it will never live up to its (admittedly unrealistic) future earnings estimates. At which point the stock price will plummet.

That being said, I slightly retract my previous statement: FB won't die out completely, it will merely linger.

Re:Doesn't matter - FB has entered a death spiral

[TheHonch]

Tila Tequila!

Re:Doesn't matter - FB has entered a death spiral

[mbkennel]

| Besides rampant attention whores without real friends, people incapable of extracting their noses from the person in fronts arserhole, people who believe anyone who doesn't have a fffacebook page must worship at the evil Google Altar, and, "intelligence" agencies.

Sounds like there will be customers for decades.

Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public. -- P.T. Barnum

But but but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they patented it so that nobody would use it?

Re:But but but..

[Taco Cowboy]

Maybe they patented it so that nobody would use it?

They patented it to EXTORT MONEY FROM OTHERS !!

Automated means unsupervised

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's automated, it means there's no way a person checked the warrant before giving access.

So whether its legal or not is moot, since Facebook are *trusting* the LEA's claim that its legal, regardless of whether it actually is.

I wonder if Microsoft provides a backdoor portal to Windows PCs? I bet they get far more demands, and they probably would automate it too. I know that telephone companies made telephone tapping automated. A law enforcement officer simply taps something on a screen and can tap any US phone from his desk anywhere in the country. That has the same problem, nobody checks that the court issued warrants limits are complied with, because nobody ever reads it.

Re:Automated means unsupervised

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's automated, it means there's no way a person checked the warrant before giving access.

Rather large assumption there, but I'll go with it, given the history.

So whether its legal or not is moot, since Facebook are *trusting* the LEA's claim that its legal, regardless of whether it actually is.

Facebook is in no position to determine what is legal or not, unless they want to present an expert on Constitutional law. Zuckerberg is far from that, so don't even know why anyone asked the puppet-in-charge.

I wonder if Microsoft provides a backdoor portal to Windows PCs? I bet they get far more demands, and they probably would automate it too.

Uh, probably? They "probably" had to automate it, or budget for an additional 20 personnel to handle the requests.

I know that telephone companies made telephone tapping automated. A law enforcement officer simply taps something on a screen and can tap any US phone from his desk anywhere in the country. That has the same problem, nobody checks that the court issued warrants limits are complied with, because nobody ever reads it.

Nobody ever reads it because it's not their responsibility to.

Yes, you heard that right. Consider if you were to be pulled over for speeding. You knew for a fact you were not. You would still have to A) hire a lawyer, B) take a day off from work to show up to court, and C) hope you can defend yourself in the eyes of the judge who's going to believe his cop far easier than you.

Now, let's just assume you somehow win, and achieve "justice".

Forcing someone to defend themselves at three times the cost of the original fine. Call that extortion or corruption. Either way, it's fucking wrong. And it also plays part as to why no one gives a fuck about the rules. It's not their job to give a shit. You're the one who's going to be on trial defending yourself whether they fuck up or not, not them. Ever.

Re:Automated means unsupervised

[IamTheRealMike]

Or more likely, the warrant is checked ..... against a list of "superwarrants" that were fought in the FISA court and lost. Any API request that cites that warrant has to be processed so automating it, though it looks bad, doesn't really change anything.

It's official

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is evil.

Re:It's official

[TrueRecord]

I think all global social networks are evil because they give the information to the selected few. So much of the sensitive information in the hands of the selected few is risky and can give a lot of trouble, maybe even tragedies up to the end of the civilization.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Before this, no one knew that Mark Zuckerberg was a liar and not to be trusted. I'm sure glad this happened so we could finally see him for what he really is.

Misleading title

[Zouden]

Cooperating with the NSA to give unrestricted access to private data (aka PRISM) is completely different to complying with subpoenas. Facebook got a patent on the latter, but not the former as the headline suggests.

If you have a problem with FB giving over your data in response to legal requests then take it up with the agencies making the requests, because Facebook don't get a choice in the matter.

Re:Misleading title

[oodaloop]

My thoughts exactly. NSA is not a law enforcement agency, and PRISM has nothing to do with requesting data on individual users.

Re:Misleading title

[Sockatume]

If Facebook is getting so many writs for personal data that it has to automate the process, and the senders are creating so many that they need access via an API so they can send them programatically, I don't think you're talking about subpoenas in any more than the strictest technical sense.

Re:Misleading title

[Pieroxy]

If the system is automated, how does the FB API knows there's a valid subpoena behind the request?

Re:Misleading title

[catfood]

It's like those robo-signed foreclosures: the whole purpose of having a legal instrument is for some individual person to be responsible for saying essentially, "Yup, I checked this all out and it's legit." If you're processing these subpoenae automatically, and the input is overzealous or just wrong, then what?

Re:Misleading title

[Vitriol Angst]

I found this "Oversight Kourt Coordinated Automated Response Daemon" (OK_CARD.asp) and when I poked it with a query, all it sent back was; "In answer to your query YES. And we've also Friended you."

Re:Misleading title

[Vitriol Angst]

"then what?"

On your Facebook page you see; "Catfood LIKES his home foreclosure by FlagStar!"

This is good news for other services

[Chrisq]

Yes, we'd love to be more cooperative, but I'm afraid that we don't have the patent rights ....

Good thing it is patented

[GuB-42]

Hey, Facebook, make sure that no one else can use these techniques. That's your duty as a patent holder.

Re:Good thing it is patented

[VortexCortex]

Well, that's wrong. You see, the Government reserves the right to option any patent for their use.

They wouldn't get to prevent anyone from using the patent even if they wanted to. Instead, when the NSA compels other companies to infringe related patent, Facebook gets to charge the zuckers license fees.

To me, yes, it was ,,,

[Taco Cowboy]

At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg

This is a surprise to you... ?!

Yes, to me, it was

I have heard of the name of Mark Zuckerberg, I know that kid got brains

But I was not aware that he is such a pathetic liar

Now, at least I, and many others, know

And this also teaches me a lesson --- never assume anything --- I was assuming that a brainy fella like Mark Zuckerberg would appreciate the value of liberty

How wrong I was !

Last, but not least, I need to thank Edward Snowden for starting the ball rolling ... If not for Mr. Snowden, we wouldn't have known so much --- NSA / PRISM / and the latest episode ... Mark Zuckerberg

Re:To me, yes, it was ,,,

[rvw]

Last, but not least, I need to thank Edward Snowden for starting the ball rolling ... If not for Mr. Snowden, we wouldn't have known so much --- NSA / PRISM / and the latest episode ... Mark Zuckerberg

Yeah this!

Re:To me, yes, it was ,,,

[Zero__Kelvin]

Well, it took me a while to find any link at all, but you apparently missed the fact that Schmuckerberg claims that privacy is no longer a social norm. He testified before either Congress or the Senate, I can't remember which, to tell them exactly that. Did the guy sell out every American? Absolutely. But hey, he's rich, so that is what really matters. I really wish someone would post a shitload of private information about this idiot including a video of him masturbating, because by his own claim, he is fine with that.

Re:To me, yes, it was ,,,

[ZigiSamblak]

Oh Mark doesn't even want people to film him in public without his permission, which he won't give you. Biggest hypocrit I've ever heard of.

I have prior art ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry Facebook, I have prior art on the "automated writ response system", which I wrote 30 years ago:

10 PRINT "Fuck off"
20 GOTO 10

Re:I have prior art ....

[DoofusOfDeath]

Sorry Facebook, I have prior art on the "automated writ response system", which I wrote 30 years ago:

10 PRINT "Fuck off"
20 GOTO 10

15 GOTO FederalPrison
REN

Re:I have prior art ....

[Walterk]

You mean: "I refer you to the reply given in Arkell and Pressdram".

Where have you put your brain ?

[Taco Cowboy]

Hey, Facebook, make sure that no one else can use these techniques. That's your duty as a patent holder.

Excuse me, but where have you put your brain ?

Just in case you've missed it, please allow me to re-post the first sentence of TFA ...

"In June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blasted 'outrageous press reports' about the PRISM surveillance program ....

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg ...

We've known the real him for a while now:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5

The more things change the more they stay the same

[VortexCortex]

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.

TFA is just evidence of SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

Microsoft did the same.

[3vi1]

Microsoft patented (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&p=1&S1=20110153809&OS=20110153809&RS=20110153809) listening in on Skype calls for the same reasons.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[CRCulver]

... and I am glad I never waste any of my time in fb

It doesn't matter. Whatever alternate channel you are using to communicate electronically with friends and family in lieu of Facebook (e-mail, telephone calls, XMPP...), the NSA is vacuuming up that information too. (Sure, for a handful of tech savvy friends you can convince them to use PGP, but that probably flags you as more suspicious, and only the message content is hidden, not who is writing to who.)

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[somersault]

Don't worry, you'll never make them realise that they're not the lead character in a conspiracy thriller. Sure there are "conspiracies" (though not exactly very surprising ones given the contents of the PATRIOT act), but most people are boring as hell. Even the ones that think they're interesting.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[CRCulver]

What I find amazing is that people who have such privacy problems with a voluntary service where you yourself fully control what information you choose to share,

If only it were that simple. Even if you choose not to share any information, your friends can tag you in photos, letting Big Brother know you were in a certain place at a certain time with certain people. Even if you don't use your real name, Facebook has ways of figuring out who you are by picking up on a single slip-up and asking your friends "Is this user's real name X"? Facebook even creates "ghost profiles" for people who don't even sign up for an account, so without you ever giving consent, any interaction you have with those who do have account is logged. The site is a privacy nightmare.

It was a CIA project all the time

[zm]

http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/ :)

Facebook and the CIA

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not very surprising, Facebook's strong ties to the CIA are well-known. In its early days companies very close to the CIA invested heavily into Facebook and some people likewise close to teh CIA are - or at least were, last time I looked - on Facebook's board of directors.

Suprise, suprise.

[Jaysyn]

Zuckerberg is a lying piece of shit, news at 11.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[gbjbaanb]

lucky there's ghostery available that stops such tracking.

Re: At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg

[CRCulver]

Try reading my post again. Facebook gathers information about you based on what other people say, even if you choose not to share any information.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[GameboyRMH]

What's that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of all these Like buttons trying to track me from every webpage in existence, even resorting to plain-HTML tracking if all else fails. GA stops working if you disable JS.

Makes business sense

[andy1307]

making it easier for the government to get the information is not

If you have no choice but to hand over the data, wouldn't it make more sense to automate the process and save your own people some time and frustration?

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[GameboyRMH]

The site is a privacy nightmare.

It was a privacy nightmare in the early days. Now it's a privacy bad acid trip.

It's patented - does this mean we cannot use it?

[rvw]

Facebook has made it easier. I hope they made the patent broad. Of course we don't want to end up in lawsuits, so we cannot use any of the technology - right? So in effect the rest of us has to make it harder!

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Connie_Lingus]

i agree totally...and the irony is that the vast majority of users want MORE of this sort of thing on FB, not less!

What about Google?

[jbmartin6]

Google told the same 'they don't have direct access to our servers' lie, come on people let's start seeing some vulgar rants directed at the "Do No Evil" gang. To be fair it isn't a lie, they didn't have direct access. Instead Google/FB just set it up so they could get anything they wanted without having 'direct' access.

Stupidest patent -ever-

[redelm]

In the surprisingly fierce competition for stupid patents, this one has a leg up on other candidates:

The patent has costs for filing and much larger but nebulous costs for customer relations.

The patent cannot be expected to bring in any revenue. Other who might licence the patent have no incentive to do so since they can bill the NSA for compliance costs. The NSA could direct these others to use the patent, which as an entity of the USGovt it can use royalty-free and so to subcontractors.

Many patents are vain and inane. This one is stupid and destroys shareholder value.

Re:Stupidest patent -ever-

[almechist]

Agreed, I don't understand the point of this patent at all. What are they going to do, sue any other company that tries to streamline interactions with law enforcement? Yeah, there's a winning business model. Still, the thought that this could actually happen makes for some potentially amusing possible scenarios. Just imagine the headlines:

"FB claims ownership of software facilitating NSA spying, seeks injunction on all non-FB wiretaps!

My patent ...

[PPH]

... is to extent FB's interface for law enforcement agencies to reply to all requests with a string "Guru Meditation" and a randomly generated number appended.

Solution

[aepervius]

Don't worry -- at least half a dozen of your friends are working hard to make sure you are not forgotten (posting and tagging fotos, marking "I know this person from..." questions, etc.)

Solution : don't have friend ;).

Re:Solution

[erikkemperman]

Don't worry -- at least half a dozen of your friends are working hard to make sure you are not forgotten (posting and tagging fotos, marking "I know this person from..." questions, etc.)

Solution : don't have friend ;).

Faraway cage?

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[erikkemperman]

lucky there's ghostery available that stops such tracking.

IIRC ghostery was acquired by a marketing firm, which should make you at least question the product.

How is this a patent?

[mea2214]

This looks like any standard user interface to a database and basic computer architecture. I suspect the devil is in the details as to what kind of data blobs are defined in a "request" and what data blobs get returned to a user. As far as I can tell, this patent covers all data blob implementations. How can this be a patent?

...which is why Twitter could decline to do so.

[grep -v '.*' *]

Nice company you've got there -- it'd be a shame if something were to happen to it.


And it even fits in 140 chars!

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Spamalope]

Facebook even creates "ghost profiles" for people who don't even sign up for an account, so without you ever giving consent, any interaction you have with those who do have account is logged. The site is a privacy nightmare.

Facebook takes your name, address, phone number and email address from your friends phones using the FB app. Your co-workers too -- you did give HR your 'emergency contact number' right? You can bet those are programmed into a phone contact list so HR can send a group message.

I'm sure you could be jobless and friendless living in a cave, but that's about the only way to avoid it now.

I suggest poisoning the database. Add false contacts to your phone, use one to sign up for store discount cards and fake Gmail/FB accounts. Just one per person is enough to screw up everything they're doing.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[fatphil]

Bingo. I never knew that, but teh googs confirms it quickly.

From ghostery web page:
"© 2013 Ghostery, a service of Evidon, Inc."

From google, searching for "Evidon"
"""
Evidon: Home | Online Marketing Intelligence, Web Analytics, Privacy
www.evidon.com/ - Cached - Similar
Evidon grows businesses by delivering new and accurate intelligence on how
the digital marketplace really works.
"""

I'm glad I never got round to trying it out, I was initially tempted.

Clarification from Facebook

[JayNancarrow]

Hi, this is Jay Nancarrow from Facebook. The described patent was part of our efforts to build out a formal process to manage the various requests we receive. These systems enable us to carefully scrutinize each request manually, and help us push back on many of them if they're too broad, vague, or don't meet a very high legal bar. I should also add that this process has nothing to do with recent reports about activity from the NSA.

The obvious message

[Applekid]

If you've never used Facebook, don't start.
If you're using Facebook, stop it.
If you have friends that use Facebook, tell them to stop.

Don't worry about deleting stuff, the odds that deletes are actually not soft-deletes are probably nil.

Just quit it.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

most people are boring as hell. Even the ones that think they're interesting.

However, the ones who are interesting tend to be pretty important to society. Guys like MLK, presidential candidates, potential supreme court nominees. Those sorts of people. When the government has access to their private communications it is just too easy to use that access to neuter any people who might challenge the current government.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Gunboat_Diplomat]

What I find amazing is that people who have such privacy problems with a voluntary service where you yourself fully control what information you choose to share,

If only it were that simple. Even if you choose not to share any information, your friends can tag you in photos,

No. They cannot. You control if you want to let your friends tag you, approve tags, or flat out block tags.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Flere Imsaho]

If only it were that simple. Even if you choose not to share any information, your friends can tag you in photos, letting Big Brother know you were in a certain place at a certain time with certain people.

I have no friends, phew!

Re: At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg

[radarskiy]

Tags that you do not consent to do not become public. However, Facebook still has the information that someone tried to apply the tag.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[formfeed]

Yeah. Before this, no one knew that Mark Zuckerberg was a liar and not to be trusted. I'm sure glad this happened so we could finally see him for what he really is.

Yep. How more obvious can you make it?
To answer my own rhetorical question: He could get a nice white Siamese cat and stroke it while giving interviews.

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[CRCulver]

No. They cannot. You control if you want to let your friends tag you, approve tags, or flat out block tags.

While Facebook won't apply the tag, they will record that one of your friends tried to tag you. Facebook's name-completion feature notifies the server that user X has begun typing user Y's name in the tag dialog.

Re: At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg

[antdude]

How does one avoid them? Go off the grid? Is that even possible?

Re:At least now we know the real Mark Zuckerberg .

[Reziac]

Surely databases have some way to flag bogus data. Here, perhaps anything that doesn't confirm as referenced by more than one user could be flagged as bad data.