Slashdot Mirror
Facebook's Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into data deals Facebook struck with some of the world's largest technology companies (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), intensifying scrutiny of the social media giant's business practices as it seeks to rebound from a year of scandal and setbacks. A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices, according to two people who were familiar with the requests and who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential legal matters. Both companies had entered into partnerships with Facebook, gaining broad access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users. The companies were among more than 150, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Sony, that had cut sharing deals with the world's dominant social media platform. The agreements, previously reported in The New York Times, let the companies see users' friends, contact information and other data, sometimes without consent. Facebook has phased out most of the partnerships over the past two years. "We are cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously," a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. "We've provided public testimony, answered questions and pledged that we will continue to do so."
Didn't we know this already?
Apologies will be made, a fine will be paid, and betterment will be promised, but as usual nobody will go to prison or loose his fortune.
We've all been waiting for Facebook to go down the same path as Friendster and MySpace so lets just make Facebook disappear.
I remember living in a developing country when Facebook first became popular, and getting _inundated_ with daily requests to "join X on Facebook". I smelled a rat and didn't. What was frightening was the _crazy_ adoption rate of this mediocre web service - _everyone_ I knew was putting pressure on everyone else _they_ knew to also be on Facebook. People kept telling me "I can't find you on Facebook, I can't find you on Facebook". That doesn't happen without Billions of Dollars in capital behind the first push of the website. Why would millions suddenly rush to put their photo and personal data on such a simple and poorly designed website, and one with a name directly referencing "Face Indexing" or "Face Data Collection" to boot? It takes money to pull this off. LOTS of money. That money probably - even back then - came from various big industries desperate to collect as much personal data about everyone around the world as possible. Thus Facebook was not a "little Mark Zuckerberg genius startup" at all. This was a heavily industry-funded social media site from day one. And they probably got everyone's data piped to them from Day 1. Facebook _was_ about "connecting people" - but connecting them with industries who want to syphon their personal data away.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
I agree with you. Not only should used car salesmen should be guarded, they should be guarded twice.
#DeleteFacebook
If Facebook is to be investigated for a crime, it should be for using PHP.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Ain't that grand!
Also: Why has nobody commented on this yet?
I know the PR people say they're responding, but a number of countries, including Canada, say FB isn't cooperating, or at least not in any measurable way.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Not taking sides, but I'm genuinely curious. What have they done that's criminal? There's a very specific, high bar for that.. and none of the articles seem to touch on it.
It's not actually. Python lacks pass by reference among other things which is why it's not actually used in advanced work as anything other than a fancy BASH alternative to execute programs written in more serious languages.
PHP does everything C does with some ease of use features like multi-line strings and is quite fast about it. Converting from PHP to C and back is pretty trivial.
The difference between Python developers and QuickBASIC developers is that QuickBASIC developers knew it was a limited language and that they would eventually need to switch to something else.
Work Safe Porn