Facebook Backtracks, Now Says It Is Not Using Your Phone's Location To Suggest Friends 95
A report on Fusion on Monday, which cited a number of people, claimed that Facebook was using its users' phone location to suggest people to them. The publication also noted the privacy implications of this supposed feature. At the time of publishing, Facebook had noted that location was indeed one of the signals it looks into when suggesting new friends. But the social juggernaut has since backtracked on its statement with new assurances that it is not using anyone's location. In a statement to Slashdot, the company said:We're not using location data, such as device location and location information you add to your profile, to suggest people you may know. We may show you people based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you are part of, contacts you've imported and other factors.
Zuck: Dumb fucks (Score:5, Informative)
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
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5
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Sorry, we're filtering the results we don't like. Instead please enjoy this bevy of "...hashtag surfaces" and "UselessCeleb photographed in revealing clothing" links which we are currently passing off as "News".
(No matter how many times you click "I don't care about this")
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I trust Zuck as far as I could throw him.
And I'm not really Schwarzenegger.
So just because they say it (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true? There's obvious evidence they were doing it (even if they've stopped now) and Facebook is about as honest as Hillary Clinton, so you can't believe a word they say.
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No, honest they're not tracking your cellphone. They're using facial recognition to track you via store and traffic cameras, plus your camera-happy fellow facebookers, in case you lend your cellphone to someone they can still track you.
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Re: So just because they say it (Score:1)
Re: Halt (Score:1)
"We", as in the techies who read /. and care about privacy and digital rights, are just a drop in the ocean compared to all the soccer moms, teenage whores, and computer illiterate grandmas who use FB. So no, if we all stopped using it, absolutely nothing would change. And getting the nontechnical 99% if FB to stop using it is impossible because they value the convenience it brings over the privacy one could save by not using it.
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For reference, see SCO.
Summary is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
But the social juggernaut has since backtracked on its statement with new assurances that it is not using anyone's location.
That's not what they said.
They don't state they're not using your location, although they're probably hoping people will read that into it. They merely made the very narrow statement that they're not using your location to suggest people you may know.
Re:Summary is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
But the social juggernaut has since backtracked on its statement with new assurances that it is not using anyone's location.
That's not what they said.
They don't state they're not using your location, although they're probably hoping people will read that into it. They merely made the very narrow statement that they're not using your location to suggest people you may know.
Even if that is what they said I am 100% certain that they are lying. And how can I be certain? Because it keeps asking me to send friend requests to two different neighbors that I know by name and by sight but have absolutely no electronic contact with whatsoever. I don't have their phone number, they don't have mine. I don't email them, they don't email me, I don't even have their names in any electronic form. I've never typed their names into the computer - how could I? I only know their first names. But Facebook proudly presents them to me.
Re:Summary is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
And I'll just head off the "she does 'know' those guys" jokers by pointing out that I work from home and know that to not be the case; also, half the suggestions are women and, well, I'd just find that hot if it were true.
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Do they know your name? I'm nearly certain that if they searched Facebook for you, it would suggest their names to you. (I'm not saying that they don't also use location data, just that there's another path.)
Unless they have been trying to look me up on the internet, I would say no, they don't know my name. ANd furthermore, my name is so common and generic that my actual friends and acquaintances have a hard time finding me on facebook unless we have a mutual friend.
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Even if that is what they said I am 100% certain that they are lying. And how can I be certain? Because it keeps asking me to send friend requests to two different neighbors that I know by name and by sight but have absolutely no electronic contact with whatsoever.
This. I kept getting invited to "friend" my upstairs neighbor from my old apartment down the street, and the only real contact I ever had with this person was when they came down to tell me to turn the stereo down.
Of course not. (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead they're in every CCTV/IP camera on the planet and have this massive AI that is able to track you every hour of every day and distinguish victim from perpetrator, but everyone ends being irrelevant because facebook only want to know the brand of toothpaste you use.
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Do not run! (Score:2)
We Are Your Friends!
ZZAAAAAAPPPPPP
- Mars Attacks
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AFAIK
We come in peace! We come in peace!
Then Zapp!
- Mars Attacks
#FTFY
My fav is
All green of skin... 800 centuries ago, their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. For the fundamental truth self-determination of the cosmos, for dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.
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A privacy elimination tool disguised as a place where you can play pay-to-win games.
Amusing (Score:5, Insightful)
We hear people say they don't care about sharing their information or "meta data", sometimes even with the classic remark that they have nothing to hide.
But recently we have started to see stories about people being surprised when social media sites and others have started using their collected data better, it is kind of amusing.
I don't think that any of these companies all of the sudden have gotten better at mining their collected date, but rather that they choose to "turn up the dial" slowly because they need to get people used to it first and perhaps they have been a bit too quick about it recently. :)
Backtracks or disables? (Score:2)
...We're not using location data...
Note the present tense in their denial. Also note that they did not say they were never using location data for this purpose.
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Yesterday and tomorrow. Depends on meaning of "is" (Score:3)
That's exactly how I read it. "We're not using your location, at this moment. We were using it yesterday and we'll be using it tomorrow, but we turned that off for today, for you (not for everyone else).
Perhaps even more likely they are internally using the same defense that recently SCOTUS allowed for racial discrimination in college admissions. SCOTUS bought the argument "we're not using race to decide admission; we're using combined race and SAT score".
Race A, SAT score 1500: admitted
Race B, SAT score 1
I will respond by uninstalling it from my phone! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Root Root Root for your Android....
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Do you have a Facebook phone, or is it a carrier thing?
If your dumb enough.. (Score:2)
Unfortunately Facebook et al. take too many liberties and ultimately the only solution is root / jailbreak and remove. The disturbing trend is that any app now seems to believe they have the right to your location data, your contacts and whatever they see fit. Installation permissions usually get clicked with "Hell Yes" and they'll change how they use it when they see fit is buried in the T's and C's of their user agreement which usually says "we can change this whenever we want"
There's a big line being c
Bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
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Just one step closer to an automated Tindr? (Score:3)
"We noticed you send a lot of random girls dick pics. We noticed that this girl seems to like receiving random dick pics. Why don't you two be friends?"
Here's a phone (Score:2)
Call someone who cares or even believes what you say.
Hey! Stop that! Gimme my cellphone back now, willya!
What are the "other factors"? (Score:4, Informative)
In case anybody is trying to figure out what the "other factors" are, here is a few additional data points:
1. Facebook suggested my next-door neighbor to me as a potential friend.
2. I have fewer than 20 Facebook friends, and none of them are my neighbors, most are family and relatives in other cities.
3. My Facebook account is linked to a unique email address which I created only for Facebook, and which has not been revealed to any other person or website.
4. I have never imported any contacts into Facebook from any other source.
5. I do not have the Facebook app installed on my phone, and I have never connected to Facebook from my phone using the browser.
6. I have virtually no other apps installed on my phone except for Google Mail, Google Calendar, and Google Maps.
7. No other apps on my phone have been given access to location data, and the GPS is always disabled (to save battery) except when I am actively using Google Maps somewhere I am unfamiliar, (so never anywhere near my own neighborhood).
8. I provide an open wi-fi access point (no password), which is easily accessible from my next-door neighbor's house.
9. I have logged into Facebook using a computer connected to that open wi-fi network.
Could the "other factors" be as simple as IP address?
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* here ARE a few additional data points :-p
They probably use IP for location (Score:2)
At my last job, I walked a coworker through setting up a LinkedIn account. As soon as he had created the account, but before he had entered any information (beyond an email that had never been shared with coworkers), he was getting suggestions from lots of coworkers, not including me. Why? Presumably because our network was behind a NAT, so these people had all connected from the same IP address. (I wasn't suggested because I used a proxy to surf the web.)
IP addresses are decently telling. If I were
Uh yeah sure (Score:2)
Sure Facebook, we believe you.
Whoops (Score:2)
Facebook: Oh, gee, did we say "we're tracking you"? What we actually meant to say is that "we're not tracking you". Heh heh, silly us, slip of the tongue and all that. k thnx bai
Was just wondering today... (Score:2)
I took a new job and did two weeks of training in California with a bunch of people I've never met. Anyway, we carpooled, had dinners together, and all stayed at the hotel. Today I see Facebook recommending a few of them to me with no common friends and really nothing tying me to them other than where we work (if they disclose it to FB), where we all were the past two weeks, or perhaps they were Facebook stalking me.