Mozilla Launches a Petition Asking Facebook To Do More For User Privacy (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: After it was revealed that the personal data of 50 million Facebook users was shared without consent, Mozilla is calling on the social network to ensure that user privacy is protected by default, particularly when it comes to apps.

Ashley Boyd, Mozilla's vice president of advocacy, says that billions of Facebook users are unknowingly at risk of having their data passed on to third parties. He says: "If you play games, read news or take quizzes on Facebook, chances are you are doing those activities through third-party apps and not through Facebook itself. The default permissions that Facebook gives to those third parties currently include data from your education and work, current city and posts on your timeline."

Comments

It is FB's business model

[aepervius]

Their business model is to break as much privacy as they can get away and sell the data. And you ask them to reduce/stop that ? LOL. I have a bridge to sell you. They won't stop or do anything until forced by law, or forced to change their business model by having too many people bleed out of their platform. And that's it. Hoping for anything else is being incredibly naive.

Re:It is FB's business model

[jellomizer]

Your privacy is the price you pay for for Facebooks services.
Facebook then trades that information for cash.
It isn't that hard of a business model for people to understand.
If you don't want to give up your privacy, then don't use Facebook, or expect Facebook to offer you services. Unless enough people are willing to pay $100 a year for Facebook private.

Re:It is FB's business model

[gnick]

...having too many people bleed out of their platform.

I've seen more than a couple of posts on FB today from people vowing to spend less time there. You know, posting about it instead of spending less time there. And probably monitoring their account for replies like, "Right on!" and "Me too!" They'll all be back. They never really left.

Re:It is FB's business model

[Anonymous Coward]

way to go captain obvious. here's another: most fb users dont care.

instead of bleeting to the sheep on /., get on those social media sites and tell the 99.9999999% that dont care about their privacy how they're negatively affected.

Re: It is FB's business model

[c6gunner]

Problem is, Facebook tracks you regardless of whether you use their services.

Re:It is FB's business model

[tlhIngan]

Unless enough people are willing to pay $100 a year for Facebook private.

That won't work, period. Even if Facebook guaranteed to never sell or mind that data, that's still data you're giving facebook.

The only way to guarantee privacy is simple - just don't post. It doesn't matter how strong any "privacy protection" (aka marketing) document is. It's still a marketing document. Yes, marketing - because these sites know that if everything is public, users will only post a few things. But if they know some things are "protected", they would post a lot more. So by offering lightweight "protections", they guarantee that a lot of people will give them a lot more information. Hence, marketing.

The best way to keep something private is, and always has been, to just not post it online. It's like trying to keep a secret - do you tell everyone the secret, or no one?

Re:It is FB's business model

[jenningsthecat]

Their business model is to break as much privacy as they can get away and sell the data... Hoping for anything else is being incredibly naive.

Came here to say pretty much this. And to add "Third-party apps? Gimme a break, Mozilla!". Facebook follows even non-logged-in users, (and a crapload of non-users as well), all over the Web. They suggest both products and FB friends to people, based on geo-location data that the FB app collects, and will even suggest friending someone whose only connection to you is having once been in the same location simultaneously. The primary problem isn't third party apps - the primary problem is that Facebook is still alive and has so many suckers lining up to be sold as products. Facebook needs to die, and the sooner the better.

Here's an idea...

[Roger W Moore]

If you want privacy why not start by not posting personal details on a website, especially not one like Facebook?

Re: Here's an idea...

[DaMattster]

It's a great idea too. Just delete Facebook and do something educational or meaningful.

Mo$illa dosen't care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are sending data to cloudflare in their latest nightlies, and they crippled individual cookie management by making the "new" way convoluted or installing yet another extension which will probably disappear when they replace web extensions with another fad extension API. We need a new independent browser foundation. Maybe the Waterfox and Pale Moon guys can join up one day.

Their employees are delusional whores

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's fb propaganda.

Here's an employee's take

When the truth is that they work for an advertising company that pimp's out their user's data to anyone who pays them. The "tech" they're developing is just new ways to scam users out of their information.

facebook employees are like the whores who think they are the fiancé of the guy "giving" them money and gifts.

Ineffective

[DaMattster]

The only way to get anything meaningful accomplished in the way of forcing Facebook to protect privacy is if enough people delete their accounts. You have to hit them in their wallet with ad revenue loss and data sales loss.

Re:Ineffective

[jellomizer]

However it isn't a long term business model, as these fake accounts will not purchase from the adds.
If someone is selling stuff on Facebook if they don't make money they will stop.

Likely EU and Canadian actions regardless

[WillAffleckUW]

Ignored in much of these discussions is that the actions of FB, Twitter, and other social apps are frequently in contravention of Privacy Rights guaranteed by data treaties between the US and those nations, which in Canada at least are Constitutional Rights clearly spelled out in the original Constitution.

This is also causing a tax backlash against such social media platforms, which have used "headquarter" locations to minimize tax exposure, or sited data storage repositories in specific countries to avoid legal implications of data usage that contravenes the national and international legal requirements.

This will continue. The bounties for turning in such actions frequently go as high as treble damages and individual limits in the thousands per person affected, per instance, and those turning them in can get up to 10 percent of the total awards.

Personal information is for friends, not sales

[iamhassi]

Problem with Facebook is we post a new job or school or city because we want friends to know how we are doing. It's not for Facebook to take that information and sell it to anyone looking for someone going to a specific school or job. Facebook even constantly asks "where do you work? Connect with coworkers on Facebook" as if you're missing out if you don't tell Facebook where you work. Most people don't realize every word you write online is for sale. It's wrong that Facebook does it, there should be an opt out, but then advertisers wouldn't pay as much and Facebook would lose money.

Re:Personal information is for friends, not sales

[Anonymous Coward]

How else would FB be able to keep your FB account "free"?

Re:Personal information is for friends, not sales

[Known Nutter]

Problem with Facebook is we post a new job or school or city because we want friends to know how we are doing. It's not for Facebook to take that information and sell it...

No, "we" do not. Speak for yourself. I don't post jack shit to Facebook. My friends? I talk to them. They know how I am doing because I speak to them. My new job is not fodder for my so-called "friends" to stare mindlessly into their phones. As for that last bit, you may want to review this before your next visit back to Facebook. It's obvious you've never read it.

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

Yes, your personal writings and announcements of new jobs and schools are covered by IP. And that last part "others" is not clearly defined, now is it? Here, go read the rest... it's good shit!

https://www.facebook.com/terms...

Re:Personal information is for friends, not sales

[iamhassi]

How else would FB be able to keep your FB account "free"?

Simple: they don't need to make billions in profit. Let people opt out, I'm sure there's still a few people that want to see targeted ads, and advertisers will still pay for those few, just a lot less money.

Facebook launches a counter petition....

[Kenja]

... asking Mozilla to stop making web browsers. More or less the same thing.

Re:Code?

[jellomizer]

That was when they didn't have any sort of authority. They were straining to keep their product reliant while Netscape was on its decline. Which its work created Netscape 6 (The fifth version of Netscape) To keep up with IE 6. However it took too long to develop and Netscape had a few more updates and quietly went away... While Mozilla Moved to Firefox which was popular enough for them to start speaking out and being listened.

Mozilla petitions Facebook to Commit Suicide?

[ohnonononono]

What is going on here? In reality it's simple.
The masses realize that they have been victimized and they want to blame it on anyone but themselves (because what is or was popular among them theirselves can never be wrong according to their peculiar morality).
Various institutions (government and corporate business) want to capitalize on this denial of guilt by supporting the delusion.
That's what Mozilla is doing. That's Mozilla's entire business model, just as Facebook's is as an input device to the mass surveillance machine.

The ugly thing behind this all is the extremely lacking free will of the masses. Sanctimonious tech workers who essentially live in ivory towers preach self responsibility, but they fail to see that even in the sheltered bays in which they were born and raised the free will of the people is extremely lacking.
People simply do not stand up for their own interests and are easily bought off by Consumerism.
Society is failing completely. Plutotechnocrats are having everything their own way it seems. I wonder what it would take for you people to begin to have an idea of what is going on.

Mozilla?

[reboot246]

You mean the makers of a browser I don't use anymore because they don't care about privacy at all? That Mozilla?
That's rich, really rich.

Counter petition

[quonset]

A petition to force Mozilla developers to produce a browser and not some eye candy laden, bloated, steaming pile which hides operations from the user and breaks nearly all add-ons unless they spy on you.

In other news...

[ChatHuant]

Mozilla is also pondering a petition enjoining the pimps of the USA to put even more focus on preserving the chastity of their girls...

Re:Yet their default mode

[JMJimmy]

Seriously. If you change any of the data collection settings the browser begins to implode. They do no variable checks on any of it and can only opt out of the transmission part (until it "accidentally" transmits anyway).

They were supposed to have a privacy council that met every month... I think they held it 3-4 times before forgetting about it. Flat out rejected concerns about the security of passwords (which proved to be insecure)

Mozilla is a shitshow these days.

Is it the case in EU ?

[aepervius]

I mean due to the right of knowing what sort of data is saved and a right of rectification/removal we have, I do wonder if indeed FB is saving data of people it does not have - beyond what they need for people they do have (e.g. they may add my name as "brother" top my other sibling, but may not have a separate profile about me which they would sell, because in that case that would make them responsible for a right of rectification).