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Facebook Shuts Off Access To User Data For Hundreds of Thousands of Apps (theverge.com)
In a blog post, Facebook said that it's shutting off access to its application programming interface for hundreds of thousands of inactive apps. This interface is what lets app developers access user data. The Verge reports: The company had set an August 1st deadline back in May, during its F8 developer conference, for developers and businesses to re-submit apps to an internal review, a process that involves signing new contracts around user data collection and verifying one's authenticity. The goal is to ensure third-party software on Facebook was in line with the company's data privacy rules and new restrictions put in place in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a third-party developer siphoned user data and sold it to another firm in violation of Facebook's terms of service. Now, after it identified numerous apps that were either inactive or from developers who had not submitted the software for review, Facebook is cutting off those apps' access to its Platform API.
Cambridge Analytics failed because they couldn't find a way to make money off of the user data it collected, so where's the value in making user data collection apps?
Seems like FB is doing the right thing by requiring app-store like code review... and shutting off the apps that don't comply with new rules... a rare move on their part.
facebook's business is selling user data, gathered in site and off site, in both open and sneaky ways, to third parties.
they may alter their contracts and engage in spin campaigns giving the impression they wont, but they will still sell the data.
instead of vaguely pretending otherwise, facebook needs to admit it openly, and be open about the ways they gather and sell data, and about to whom they sell.
they should also give users full access to data gathered about them. they should not gather data about people not registered with facebook.
in that case, it would be clear, if you choose to use facebook, you are giving zuck power to sell your data.
and as long as 3rd parties pay for data and are acting legally, there is nothing wrong with such data being used for political or commercial campaigns.
Well, this is gonna totally deter me. I'm a state actor or a shady company and I want to scrape Facebook for data. Unfortunately, they're making me sign a new TOS that makes me promise that I won't. What a trump card. Guess I'll just hang it up and go feed the homeless.
These are only the *inactive* apps. You know, the apps students put together at various hack-a-thons Facebook hosted around the world when it was offering up user data, not the commercials ones that harvest and re sell user data.
e.g. "World Hack Moscow", was an event hosted by Zuckerberg where he showed a group of keen Moscow hackers how they could access all of Facebooks loverly user data. They slapped together a bunch of apps for practise. These will be inactive apps, whose token is revoked.
https://boingboing.net/2018/06/10/privacy-by-design-2.html
"In a 2012 video, Facebook's Simon Cross shows the Moscow crowd how they can "get a ton of other information" on Facebook users and their friends. "We now have an access token, so now let's make the same request again and see what happens," Cross explains (YouTube). "We've got a little bit more data, but now we can start doing really interesting stuff. We can get my friends. We can get some more information about one of my friends. Here's Connor, who you'll meet later. Say 'hello,' Connor. He's waving. And we can also get a ton of other information as well." "
The headline is pretty click-bait just by reading the summary. This seems like a logical move by people who seem to be thinking logically. They are basically trying to enforce their new privacy rules put in place after the whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco. Apps that want to access data of their users need to be active and need to submit their app for review. Isn't this what everybody wanted???
The wording added to the TOS isn't about Facebook doesn't want to keep getting money from companies who abuse users' data in all sorts of ways. They aren't removing any *active* apps, apps they get paid from. The clause in the TOS is about Facebook being able to point to that and say "we told them not do that" the next time one of the apps is in the news. Alternatively, in a class action suit, Facebook can again say "our TOS said that's not allowed". The TOS isn't for Facebook to enforce, it's their excuse.
I wonder how it is relevant news that the most inactive software has been cut off the data wonderland "Facebook".
Well, will that change your mind?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"How is "data privacy" going to allow an ad company to sell ads? "
"Data privacy" or not, ad companies will always be selling all the ads they want.
Every ad company will go on sorting and collecting, selling and buying. The ad company has paying customers to support.
Free "social media" has to place and find lots of new ads to pay its wages? Ads from where if the ad companies get held back with data privacy?
Will social media do direct and only allow its own ads?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"Ads from where if the ad companies get held back with data privacy?"
Facebook will just have to charge less to place an ad.
But the social media company has wages to cover?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"But the social media company has wages to cover?"
Considering their profit margin they could still easily do that.
Go internal on all ads? Sell all ads direct? Sell all data sets direct?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Not sure I'm following you. Facebook can still sell ad space in various ways even if some of them are less targeted.