Facebook Accused of Conducting Mass Surveillance Through Its Apps (theguardian.com) 93
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.
When its free (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wow, 4chan retards complaining on /. about people being reddit. The irony.
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Hell, companies like Acxiom [acxiom.com] have been doing this for decades before there was such a thing as Facebook.
FYI, the Feds actually used their services after 9/11....
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everyone is the product.
Not always.
Things like Steam are free, you can use steam and not spend a single penny on the Steam store.
I'm gathering from your sig, you're an Aussie (likely 30's or 40's). I'm an Aussie of similar age who lives in the UK now. Today, is GDPR day. This means that all those scummy companies passing your details around like the town bike are no longer permitted to do that without express consent. As such up until today I've been receiving a plethora of emails and popups, they've come in two types:
1. W
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Sure, Steam is free. But the whole point of Steam is that it's a store. Some products are free, but the vast majority of the products in the store require payment. If you're looking for good examples, you might want to try GIMP, or other free software tools. They are completely free, and don't even ask for your money. There's a small donate link on the top of their page, but you don't even see it unless you go looking for it.
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Sure, Steam is free. But the whole point of Steam is that it's a store. Some products are free, but the vast majority of the products in the store require payment. If you're looking for good examples, you might want to try GIMP, or other free software tools. They are completely free, and don't even ask for your money. There's a small donate link on the top of their page, but you don't even see it unless you go looking for it.
Well that was my point. Steam isn't using your personal data to make money, they're making money by selling you games and by selling their services to game makers. They're open and honest about what they're doing and how they're doing it. Pretty much the polar opposite of Facebook.
My point about the GDPR is that everything has been updating their policies in reaction to its enforcement, Steam has had a single popup saying "we're already complaint" with an OK to get rid of the dialog box, not an "I accep
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When it's free, everyone is the product
Agreed. NOT that this valuable litmus test should be taken as an excuse for Facebook, just a warning to the wary. We, the public, need governmental/regulatory protection from predatory practices, even free ones. If a corporation hands out poisonous muffins, it's not legal or ethical to do so simply because they're free.
Re: no shit, sherlock. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re: no shit, sherlock. (Score:2)
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
Re: Moscow Donald - Treason (Score:2)
Look - a squirrel!
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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.
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Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Social media tracking is just one part of larger digital databases.
See the Domain Awareness System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] too AC...
EU Privacy Law (Score:5, Insightful)
... 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.
Re:EU Privacy Law (Score:5, Informative)
You're so wrong in so many ways:
- the new privacy law is nothing more than a harmonisation of different existing laws already in effect since 1996 and subsecutive modifications (the european guideline law was from 24. october 1995)
- in 1995 there was no Google, facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp.
- till today the european laws were applicable only to european individuals and companies
- you cannot compete, if your competitor does not respect the same rules
- the big data collectors are all outside the EU, so they had to be included too in this new law, as soon as they do business with EU-citizens
Let's talk about the effects of this new law in a few years - I'm sure he US will follow too.
Re:EU Privacy Law (Score:5, Informative)
I suggest this read for some enlightenment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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You're posting as AC, as you know you're writing bullshit?
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The problem is, that it's the other way round. US companies don't care to pay taxes in Europe. In Italy for example AirBNB should pay a 20% tax on bookings made through its portal since June 2017, but AirBNB responded: "no we don't pay taxes in Italy - we're a US company". But AirBNB doesn't even disclose who got bookings, so the taxing authority has no means to collect the taxes directly at the hosts. Italy is toothless. Same in France: there AirBNB even offered the hosts a foreign credit-card, so they ca
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I'm from Italy. Our government is paralyzed. Same in other EU-countries: our presidents pull the tail in the face of the overwhelming power of the United States. When Angela Merkel discovered that the US intelligence was eavesdropping her mobile phone, all she had to say was "that's not polite".
Those few state presidents, that do/did have the balls to object to the US supremacy and its economic interests are not living in peace: see Saddam, Gaddhafi, Assad, Putin, ...
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?!? Did you actually read the law you're commenting about?
Re:EU Privacy Law (Score:4, Informative)
You've got it wrong. Did you actually read the law?
1. Mom and Pop shops do not need a DPO, that's requested only for businesses with a staff of at least 10 persons. And that DPO does not have to be full-time. Quoting the name of the owner is enough.
2. IP-addresses are private data only when tied to a name. A simple line in a logfile with an ip-address does not constitute private data.
3. Usually you don't keep backups forever, but only for the last week or so. Also data may and should be preserved for a limitation period. So that's a non-issue.
4. You know if your have the server in your house, or if your hoster is in the EU. And if you don't know, you could ask, where the data is physically stored.
5. I don't see a violation, if I (european) visit a foreign webpage, and that visit gets recorded in the relative logfiles. When I go to a foreign country, I have to respect their laws - the same I have to drive on the left, when I wanna drive a car in GB, Australia or SouthAfrica. If you (US-american) come to Europe, you have to play to EU-rules.
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If my website is in the US, the EU law is so broadly sweeping that I can be sued for it, even if I do zero business with the EU.
This is only going to hurt them.
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Bullshit
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Where's the "official" DGPR's page? Please give me a link and show me the section that confirms your allegation.
The EU-law protects EU-citizens privacy. If you are from the US and don't do business with EU-citizens you're not affected.
sold (out) to how many security services (Score:2)
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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.
Slashdot - I do not accept (Score:1)
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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.
Corporations first (Score:5, Interesting)
Cat Food (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
"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"
First be evil (Score:1)
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.