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Steve Jobs Tried To Warn Mark Zuckerberg About Privacy In 2010 (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Zuckerberg should have heeded what he heard from the late Steve Jobs eight years ago. Then, when the social network had a measly half-billion users, Jobs spoke at The Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD conference, where Zuckerberg was in the audience, waiting to be interviewed himself, and described what privacy meant. Journalist Walt Mossberg asked Jobs his thoughts on recent privacy issues around Facebook (which at the time was revamping its privacy controls after criticism it was forcing people to share data) and Google (which was literally recording private wifi information), and whether Silicon Valley looks at privacy differently than the rest of the world.
"Silicon Valley is not monolithic," Jobs responded, "We've always had a very different view of privacy than some of our colleagues in the Valley." Apple, for instance, does not leave it up to developers to decide whether to be dutiful about warning users that their apps are tracking their location data, instead forcing pop-ups on users to alert them that an app is tracking them, and to turn off that ability if they don't want. "We do a lot of things like that, to ensure that people know what these apps are doing," he added. It's a stance his successor, Tim Cook, still holds. Mossberg then asked Jobs if that applied to Apple's own apps in the cloud. Here's what Jobs said: "Privacy means people know what they're signing up for, in plain English, and repeatedly. I'm an optimist; I believe people are smart, and some people want to share more data than other people do. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you're going to do with their data." If the company had been more forthright about how developers could take data shared with them by Facebook users and sold to third parties, it may not have been in the mess it's in today. Additionally, TechCrunch reports that Zuckerberg was warned about app permissions in 2011 by European privacy campaigner and lawyer Max Schrems. "In August 2011, Schrems filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission exactly flagging the app permissions data sinkhole (Ireland being the focal point for the complaint because that's where Facebook's European HQ is based)."
"[T]his means that not the data subject but 'friends' of the data subject are consenting to the use of personal data," wrote Schrems in the 2011 complaint, fleshing out consent concerns with Facebook's friends' data API. "Since an average facebook user has 130 friends, it is very likely that only one of the user's friends is installing some kind of spam or phishing application and is consenting to the use of all data of the data subject. There are many applications that do not need to access the users' friends personal data (e.g. games, quizzes, apps that only post things on the user's page) but Facebook Ireland does not offer a more limited level of access than 'all the basic information of all friends.'" [...] "The data subject is not given an unambiguous consent to the processing of personal data by applications (no opt-in). Even if a data subject is aware of this entire process, the data subject cannot foresee which application of which developer will be using which personal data in the future. Any form of consent can therefore never be specific," he added. It took Facebook from September 2012 until May 2014 and May 2015 to implement changes and tighten app permissions.
"Silicon Valley is not monolithic," Jobs responded, "We've always had a very different view of privacy than some of our colleagues in the Valley." Apple, for instance, does not leave it up to developers to decide whether to be dutiful about warning users that their apps are tracking their location data, instead forcing pop-ups on users to alert them that an app is tracking them, and to turn off that ability if they don't want. "We do a lot of things like that, to ensure that people know what these apps are doing," he added. It's a stance his successor, Tim Cook, still holds. Mossberg then asked Jobs if that applied to Apple's own apps in the cloud. Here's what Jobs said: "Privacy means people know what they're signing up for, in plain English, and repeatedly. I'm an optimist; I believe people are smart, and some people want to share more data than other people do. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you're going to do with their data." If the company had been more forthright about how developers could take data shared with them by Facebook users and sold to third parties, it may not have been in the mess it's in today. Additionally, TechCrunch reports that Zuckerberg was warned about app permissions in 2011 by European privacy campaigner and lawyer Max Schrems. "In August 2011, Schrems filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission exactly flagging the app permissions data sinkhole (Ireland being the focal point for the complaint because that's where Facebook's European HQ is based)."
"[T]his means that not the data subject but 'friends' of the data subject are consenting to the use of personal data," wrote Schrems in the 2011 complaint, fleshing out consent concerns with Facebook's friends' data API. "Since an average facebook user has 130 friends, it is very likely that only one of the user's friends is installing some kind of spam or phishing application and is consenting to the use of all data of the data subject. There are many applications that do not need to access the users' friends personal data (e.g. games, quizzes, apps that only post things on the user's page) but Facebook Ireland does not offer a more limited level of access than 'all the basic information of all friends.'" [...] "The data subject is not given an unambiguous consent to the processing of personal data by applications (no opt-in). Even if a data subject is aware of this entire process, the data subject cannot foresee which application of which developer will be using which personal data in the future. Any form of consent can therefore never be specific," he added. It took Facebook from September 2012 until May 2014 and May 2015 to implement changes and tighten app permissions.
The Brits could turn Zuck into a sitcom "The rise and fall of Mark Zuckerberg ", call him something like Reginald Perrin perhaps...
One of the visionaries of our time. Spot on about privacy in this case.
He was taken from us too soon. While Tim Cook has followed in Jobs' footprints, he is no Jobs. Had Jobs been here today, I'm sure we would hear some scathing rebukes of Facebook, Google, et al. both in terms of the data they steal from users, and the data they cozily provide to government agencies.
Thank you, Steve, for all you did. At least there is a legacy for others to try and follow. Rest in peace.
Steve Jobs uses privacy as a means of blocking the competition too. When he talks about fine grained permissions and such, it's convenient how the same mechanisms are used to force everything through the app store.
It's also convenient how companies like Pebble took weeks to be approved.
With Steve, take what he says with a grain of salt and wonder if there are hidden intentions here. Don't forget, he also made claims such as the Ogg format was illegal to try to bolster iTunes
Facebook Privacy.
(audience laughs)
I told you that was a joke.
... sorry.
It was just hanging there.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
warnings usually come with the possibility of consequences. I don't see any forthcoming. The scandal's already blown over with little or not chance of government regulation. The hit they took to stock will evaporate once Walstreet realizes nobody's gonna stop this gravy train.
The only thing of material consequence that might come out of this is that Trump might lose his data analytics. If he doesn't rebuild them (and he might not, he's none too bright and he's fired, pissed off or double crossed all the people who got him elected) then it'll hurt him in 2020.
That said, so far it looks like the Dems are going to run another right of center Hilary style candidate and if that happens I don't think it'll matter.
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I mean, this is Steve Jobs, the man who declined to use modern medicine to save his own life, that we are talking about. Not what I call a great track record for wise decisions.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
This. Privacy isn't the problem. Everyone gave them that information willingly. The problem is when, for example, you have your COO Sheryl Sandberg email a candidate's campaign chief saying that you're going to help them:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/976134614099152896
...because, he's not wrong, really.
Thing is, Apple got rich selling a premium product at premium prices. Google -- Apple's biggest competitor -- got rich giving away a service for free, and plastering targeted advertising in front of their tracked users. Of course Jobs would speak out against the practice.
His stance is hardly surprising or visionary. It was business.
So now Facebook takes it step further, with actual propaganda targeted to the most gullible people.
I don't know what to say. It was predictable. And while I think it is wrong, I don't know how much I can blame Facebook. It comes down to people. As George Carlin said, "Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that."
Zuck has made his billions and sold his stocks. What does he care?
So far as I can see, Zuckerberg was born with a short cluestick on certain matters, and this will never change.
Google Founders Talk Montessori
That's from 2010 (weren't we just talking about 2010?) and the era vibe just makes your skin crawl.
So if Mark hasn't got the Montessori edge, what has he bot?
Guess you don't learn much about privacy reading Hebrew, Latin, or Greek.
Didnt like "EVERYONE" warn about facebook abusing privacy?
Zuck sure guards his privacy, buying up adjcent property to keep the rifraff away.
Canada has went at them a few times over privacy issues.
and a Hilary supporter. She's everything the working class voted against with Trump. She'll lose. Star power isn't enough. People want a populist. They want somebody who'll stand up for them. Trump may not be a populist, but he plays one on TV.
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Mark unfriended Steve.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
We're supposed to see Jobs as a brilliant hero here on this... "he saw it all YEARS ago and warned about it" we are brethlessly told.
Um... a couple of points:
First, Steve Jobs was one of the main enablers of all this. He was the one that rolled out the iPhone and showed everybody how "insanely great" it would be to live their lives on their cell phones (oh, and just happen to store all their personal info in those phones and/or the big white fluffy safe innocent "cloud")
Second, people ought to notice that when asked a simple straight forward question by the interviewer about whether Apple's own software did these things Jobs did not give a simple basic unequivocal answer "no".... Jobs did something he was great at: he misdirected.