Facebook Is Using Your Phone's Location To Suggest New Friends (fusion.net) 140
Fusion's Kashmir Hill is reporting that Facebook is using your phone's location to suggest new friends. It's unclear exactly when the social juggernaut began doing this, but a number of instances suggest it only started recently. From the report:Last week, I met a man who suspected Facebook had tracked his location to figure out who he was meeting with. He was a dad who had recently attended a gathering for suicidal teens. The next morning, he told me, he opened Facebook to find that one of the anonymous parents at the gathering popped up as a "person you may know." [...] "People You May Know are people on Facebook that you might know," a Facebook spokesperson said. "We show you people based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you're part of, contacts you've imported and many other factors." One of those factors is smartphone location. A Facebook spokesperson said though that shared location alone would not result in a friend suggestion, saying that the two parents must have had something else in common, such as overlapping networks.While this feature could be useful in some cases, many may -- and they should -- see it as a big invasion of their privacy -- Hill has succinctly explained a number of them.
OH FUCK (Score:5, Funny)
You missed it by a mile (Score:3)
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0 for 2 (Score:2)
Pin the tail on.... (Score:2)
I was thinking almost as nefariously. "Jarred wants to be your friend."
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This would be a great way to make friends with Putin, KGB (FSB) employees, or your favorite Gulag prison guards.
You wouldn't even need to be there, or have a phone, to do it. Just fire up a phone emulator (or many instances of phone emulators). Install Facebook on it.
Then use the Emulator's gps testing feature to input gps coordinates indicating the Kremlin, or the Gulag in question. Of course, you would need to create a new separate Facebook profile for each location so that the data you obtain does not g
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Your mom? ;)
That's amazing! (Score:2, Insightful)
How does it do that? I don't have a Facebook account, nor a Facebook app on my phone.
Just say "no" to the Bookface.
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Actually...
https://slashdot.org/poll/2991/do-you-have-a-facebook-account
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The story is addressing the sheep.
There, FTFY.
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Ok, if that's what you need to feel like a special little snowflake.
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Your comment says a lot about your age. Fact is most people are not on Facebook. Facebook membership has levelled off. Young people don't feel the need to have Facebook account as the 25-45 age group. There are much better way of staying in contact with your friends. Sharing through Facebook is actually dropping. They've already acknowledge it. That's why they're getting desperate with those friends add hoping people start sharing again.
Re:That's amazing! (Score:5, Interesting)
Your comment says a lot about your age. Fact is most people are not on Facebook.
If we're talking about the United States and Canada... you're wrong. The population of the United States and Canada is 357 million people. According to this site, 222 million people in the United States and Canada use Facebook. Even subtracting for some people having two or more accounts-- apparently, most people in the US and Canada are on Facebook.
http://www.statista.com/statis... [statista.com]
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My daughter, for instance, has all but left Facebook for other social platforms. She still technically has an account, but mostly ignores it.
She still has an account, but is the app still installed on her phone? If so, then I bet she's still being tracked and could be shown as a suggested friend to others.
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Correct me if I'm wrong (it's about a year since I closed my Facebook account, and maybe 3 or 4 years since I added a "friend" to it, so I may be remembering it wrong), but doesn't the user have to actually log in and respond to a "friend request" in some way?
Even if I did have an account, and installed the app on my phone (why? it's got a web page, so use that, surely?), I'd have to turn on the location feature for the phone to know where I am. Which I on
Re:That's amazing! (Score:4, Insightful)
Never have been, no intention of joining that or any other social media at this point.
i"m thinking of perhaps doing twitter or something for a business venture I'm thinking of, but ONLY if I can create a business only account and now have to have a personal account.
This article is yet ANOTHER reason NOT to be on Facebook.
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It's all risk-management, not risk avoidance. I give FB some information. They provide me some tools.
I'm guessing you maximize for personal privacy. I use FB to organize groups, rallies, protests, and get legislation passed that protects the privacy of millions of people.
And, yeah, FB knows what I look like, what kinds of food I prefer, and what my VPN's IP address is, in exchange. But I'm willing to make that trade for the greater good.
YMMV.
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FaceBook is trying that crap on a large scale with its single sign-on feature. Luckily I have not come across many sites yet that actually use the feature, let alone have it as the onl
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Most is also not the same as everyone or even almost everyone. It's not even two thirds. I would suspect that 1/3rd of America isn't the same thing as "too small to be considered" as has been implied elsewhere in the comments.
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Here let me correct that for you, straight from the article you mentioned "the websites and third part apps which are integrated into its services". So the number of 'active' users, also counts those running across facebook scripts on other web sites, where facebook pays for those 'active' user numbers to be run up and to monitor and count them, even when they are not actually interacting with facebook, they just basically tripped a facebook privacy mine, that pretends to make them look active.
So to de-fa
Re: That's amazing! (Score:1)
They purchased WhatsApp and Instagram for a reason and will probably add Snapchat to their collection.
Facebook is like an umbrella corporation, they are just into interaction and relations of people. Don't let the "Young people doesn't use it anymore" fool you, they gather the data in one way or another. Ex spies say they had to work for months and spend millions of dollars , risk their lives to gather all that data which you give to Facebook in one day.
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I'm part of the 7% I have an account under a fake name
I used to have two accounts until someone decided ikatefacebork was not my real name and Facebook demanded to see my photo id.
Haven't had to use the other account in years the only reason I had one in the first place was to deal with companies that CBA to have their own login system.
Re: That's amazing! (Score:1)
For a system like Facebook, we are all unique hex numbers, name rarely matters and trust me they know you as a number way more than your best friend or girlfriend. Your name hardly matters to them.
There was a story about how large companies predicted if one is pregnant with the behavioural, mathematical analysis back in 2012, just imagine the stuff Facebook can do.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012... [nytimes.com]
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I'm part of the 7% I have an account under a fake name I used to have two accounts until someone decided ikatefacebork was not my real name and Facebook demanded to see my photo id.
Haven't had to use the other account in years the only reason I had one in the first place was to deal with companies that CBA to have their own login system.
You should have just photoshopped your ID to have ikatefacebork as your name.
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Pretty much everyone uses Facebook. Everyone who has access to the Internet, has a Facebook account. You belong to the .4% category.
there are apparently 1.65B monthly "active" users on FB. Why the quotes? Because I know at least 3 people that are active on FB, and each of them has more than 1 account that they're actively using. I also know some others that have 1 account, but may or may not be active. There are an estimated 3.4B internet users globally. So apparently GP and I are in the majority of internet users.
Re:That's amazing! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Good lord, who wouldn't root their phone if FB was on it?
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Now I'm waiting for man sues facebook after random girls that shop in the same mall start showing up on his facebook account as people he might know and wife cuts off his private parts.
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Re: That's amazing! (Score:1)
Your personal number could be uploaded to them like 200 times along with all your correspondence (calls, messages) because your friends and relatives uses their application and messenger. Yes, they ask before uploading all the information and yes, people allow it.
It is just like getting lung cancer from second hand smoking as I bet people not having Facebook accounts are more precious to them, they must be digging deeper.
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And if you did, why would you let this app have access to your location? I don't let any apps other than maps and cycling apps have my location.
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There are probably one or more "phantom accounts" of you, created when you visit sites with the api, when people talk about you on fb etc etc etc..
uninstall the facebook app (Score:5, Insightful)
uninstall the facebook app and use the browser instead
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Re: uninstall the facebook app (Score:1)
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uninstall the facebook app
Should have stopped there.
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I have never used the FB app on ANY of my phones, yet yesterday a person I met via craigslist (and had absolutely NO other connections to) appeared on my FB suggestions. In fact, that particular FB account has NO friends on it at all (just as an experiment.) The person never used my wifi or anything, and GPS is always turned off on my own phone. Creepy.
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My point was to not use FB.
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How does that do anything extra to protect your location? Your phone has a built-in GPS chip.
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Answer "no" when the browser asks to use your location information.
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I only read the post body. Titles are just that - titles. OP did not indicate that they don't use the app anywhere I should be expected to read.
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AC didn't consider that there are probably plenty of other apps that sell the user's location data to Facebook.
It's Satan's fault! (Score:1)
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Satan is holding a contest between Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Oracle.... At present, unusually, Microsoft is trailing
No, Microsoft are so far ahead that the commentators have lost interest in it; the newcomers to the race are just more interesting.
Who could object to this? (Score:4, Insightful)
This would be a great way to get to know the full identities of the other fun members of your AA group.
That's nothing... (Score:1)
It's suggesting that I friend the creepy guy outside in the bushes...
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Yup (Score:5, Informative)
I noticed this a few months back. I noticed that I was getting a lot more friend suggestions of people that I didn't know, which was the first thing that made me curious. Facebook had always been suggesting that I friend people when I had mutual friends with that person, but suddenly it was suggesting that I friend people that I didn't recognize, and with whom I shared no mutual friends. So I started paying a bit more attention.
Then I noticed that, among the random strangers, there were a few people that I did know but did not have any mutual Facebook friends and hadn't checked in at the same locations or anything else. That was my first tip-off that Facebook was trying to do something clever to link up friends, so I scanned the suggestions again looking for a possible pattern. Then I noticed that some of the strangers looked familiar. It took me a second to place them, but they were people who lived in the same apartment building or worked in the same office building. In some cases, it was people who lived in a nearby apartment building and got coffee from the same place that I did.
They're definitely using location data to match people up. My only question is whether it's tracking your location all the time, only when the app is open, or only when you post.
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I noticed it months ago when I got friend requests for client employees, people I only knew by face or first name in passing. The biggest clue was when our nanny started showing up as a potential friend.
I noticed that iOS has a location right for "use your location all the time" or "use your location only when using the app" and mine for Facebook had been set to "all the time".
I switched it to "only when using the app" and have gotten fewer suggestions that feel geographically related.
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Facebook uses your phone's location to (Score:3)
Since oooh 2012 or so they did IP for ISPs (Score:1)
It recommends also based on login IP. So you get your neighbors even though you have never met them.
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Abandon? Please. Be creative, start trolling!
There is one thing an statistician fears more than having no data: Having poisoned data. Data where it is impossible to tell whether the data you have is real or fake, and what information is good and which is bogus. Because having little data means you at least have a little bit of data. Having poisoned data means you have no data at all to work with.
Poison the data well and watch the empire crumble.
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There are actually plugins that can do that. Unfortunately they are easy to filter out as noise.
Data poisoning is something you have to do by hand. It doesn't take as much work as it sounds, but it isn't something you can offload easily onto some plugin if you want it to work out.
That explains the FBI suggestions (Score:2)
I've been wondering why FB was suggesting so many agents as friends...
Be right back, someone's knocking at my door.
No it isn't (Score:2)
Facebook Is Using Your Phone's Location To Suggest New Friends
Facebook isn't using my phone to do anything. These shitty clickbait headlines are getting everywhere. Some of us are capable of being interested in things without having to have them directly linked to our own personal wellbeing.
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But incapable of not commenting to that effect. Now hold up, I need to go tell someone I don't have a TV.
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My comments regarding the shittiness of the headline would still stand even if I did have Facebook on my phone.
Yep... (Score:2)
It had to be in the last update to the iOS app on June 24th. I was very recently traveling with a group of people who all carried smartphones, but we never shared any information, photos or tagged each other. Basically, all communications were off the grid between us.
When I returned from my trip, several of the people from the group were in the "People you may know" section.
Worrisome If You Let It (Score:2)
TFA even tells you how to turn off Facebook's ability to use your location data.
Choices. Knowledge. I believe it's still opt-in. Is it not?
Being on Facebook... (Score:4, Insightful)
... and bitching about invasion of privacy is a little hypocritical.
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Go to jail because someone had the same idea but was faster.
Facebook Privacy (Score:1)
There's a word [oxymoronlist.com] for that...
It'll be interesting to see them try. (Score:2)
I only turn on location access for the Facebook app (and my web browser) when I travel, so right now it thinks I'm about 2,200 miles away from where I actually am...
Goodbye, Craiglist casual encounters! (Score:2)
FB has been creepy for a long time now... (Score:3)
GPS can be faked (Score:5, Interesting)
I use an app that puts out fake GPS data for other apps. They all think I hang out at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave all day.
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Why the hell is this news? (Score:2)
Facebook would have to be pretty retarded to NOT have this obvious feature. I'd be rather shocked if it wasn't added a very long time ago.
Re: Why the hell is this news? (Score:2)
Why would it be awkward? The friend suggestions are shown to YOU. It's not like Facebook is gonna scream at your friends "LOOK AT WHAT FRIENDS I JUST SUGGESTED TO JOHN!".
phone location (Score:2)
I hope it works (Score:2)
I'd like a friend in her 20s, maybe 30s, with big tits please?
creepy much? (Score:2)
One thing I do on Facebook as soon possible (Score:2)
...is deny it access to my contacts. And fight the fight over and over, because they won't take 'no' for an answer for very long.
Along with some other privacy settings I keep having to remake. It's relentless, almost as bad as dealing with the U.S. Government.
And yes, I reinstall FB occasionally on my Android devices, giving them an opportunity to sneak in those settings again. I notice they've moved the 'Most Recent' choice of listings further and further down the line, trying to convince me to accept t
Awesome! (Score:2)
My teenage daughter says nobody uses Facebook anymore anyway, since all their parents are on it now...
Mine doesn't. (Score:1)
Pushed through apps? (Score:2)
I can't say I'm surprised by this.
Since I'm not interested in being notified every time someone messages me, I only access FB from a browser, even on my phone, and my browser does not have access to my location. This worked fine up until a couple of weeks ago when their mobile website stopped supporting messaging, instead popping up with a helpful advertisement to install the Facebook Messenger app.
I downloaded it for fun and looked at the list of permissions it asked for - it was taller than my screen. M
How long it will take (Score:2)
To the facebook AI get access to the unprotected CCTV cameras around the world and go full "samaritan"?
Neighbor (Score:2)
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. . . I don't use Facebook
Yes, but please allow us to have a laugh at those who do.