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Facebook Accused of Conducting Mass Surveillance Through Its Apps (theguardian.com)
A court case in California alleges that Facebook used its apps to gather information about users and their friends, including some who had not signed up to the social network, reading their text messages, tracking their locations and accessing photos on their phones. The Guardian reports: The claims of what would amount to mass surveillance are part of a lawsuit brought against the company by the former startup Six4Three, listed in legal documents filed at the superior court in San Mateo as part of a court case that has been ongoing for more than two years. The allegations about surveillance appear in a January filing, the fifth amended complaint made by Six4Three. It alleges that Facebook used a range of methods, some adapted to the different phones that users carried, to collect information it could use for commercial purposes.
"Facebook continued to explore and implement ways to track users' location, to track and read their texts, to access and record their microphones on their phones, to track and monitor their usage of competitive apps on their phones, and to track and monitor their calls," one court document says. But all details about the mass surveillance scheme have been redacted on Facebook's request in Six4Three's most recent filings. Facebook claims these are confidential business matters. It has until next Tuesday to submit a claim to the court for the documents to remain sealed from public view.
"Facebook continued to explore and implement ways to track users' location, to track and read their texts, to access and record their microphones on their phones, to track and monitor their usage of competitive apps on their phones, and to track and monitor their calls," one court document says. But all details about the mass surveillance scheme have been redacted on Facebook's request in Six4Three's most recent filings. Facebook claims these are confidential business matters. It has until next Tuesday to submit a claim to the court for the documents to remain sealed from public view.
everyone is the product.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in like, twenty or thirty years. Yawnnn...
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
They're being accused. Great. But nothing will be done about it and they'll carry on like it never happened. I wish I was more believing, but the skepticism has been drilled into me by years of nothing happening to them.
... and then people wonder why the EU passes a law to protect our privacy.
It is high time that this habit to gather private data of those big companies gets tightly restricted.
I'm sure, other countries around the world will follow.
I wouldn't be surprised if Face Book has a FSBook office, a PLAybook and a FaCIAL book, among many sovereign renters.
I think their claim is they do this without permission, by having their app preinstalled on phones and collecting data from people without Facebook accounts.
Wow, 4chan retards complaining on /. about people being reddit. The irony.
There is no post about GDPR, but Slashdot now has popups regarding the privacy policy. When I click "I do not accept" nothing happens. Shouldn't that button redirect me away from the site or something. So far I've only given GDRP authorisation to my local library.
AC East Germany had internal checks on approach to the Restricted zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
In the US, corporations, literally, have more rights than individuals do. That's just the way it is, and that's the way it will be until bribery of our politicians is made illegal. Until that happens, nothing will change.
I don't respond to AC's.
Algol wasn't that bad. I rather liked it. Of course, I also liked Forth... but Lisp was too expensive for me to more than try until I'd already started on C++... and I never really did get into it, though I've installed SBCL a couple of times.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Your argument would be more believable if the slogan didn't include the word "Just". Consider the difference in meaning between:
"Just don't use it, Bro".
and
"Don't use it, Bro!".
Even "Friends don't let friends use Facebook" is too weak a statement. I'll admit that "Burn it down and salt the earth!" is a bit too strong, however.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The thing is, those gadgets only listen in the spaces controlled by the people who installed them. I can avoid them.
Facebook, though, ... perhaps I should reconsider. Perhaps "Burn them down and salt the earth!" isn't too strong.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"My wife and I took a random subject we had NEVER every talked about or searched online, and talked about it while her iPhone was on in the background. Two days later, our Facebook advertising completely changed over to cat food for a few days. -Neville"
Look, we could all see this coming.
The major difficulty is that, except for the EU (GDPR), UK, Scotland, and Canada, very few US states have privacy rights to any extent, but now that other countries are willing to enforce data protections for their citizens who may travel in, work in, or live in the US, everyone is having to get real about the devil's bargain FB presented.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
AC the US captures every drivers face, passenger face and front/back license plate in most of the interesting states.
Social media tracking is just one part of larger digital databases.
See the Domain Awareness System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... too AC...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Look - a squirrel!
There's also the matter of whether clicking an "I agree" button (mandatory or the app doesn't work) constitutes actual agreement.
Agreement with 100 pages of dense legal jibberish. Jibberish that no one, ever, has read in its entirety. Agreement with completely one-sided terms. Terms that can be fairly summarized as "fuck you pleb, you lose, we always win, you have no rights, all your data are belong to us, fuck you pleb".
No responsible court would uphold such a flimsy assertion. But hey - this is Soviet America, and the judge might really *need* a new Tesla. Or perhaps a new yacht.
Or if the judge wants to play hardball.... well, Facebook *is* essentially a blackmail database. I'm sure the judge could be persuaded that even FB's most villainous practices are fully badlawful.