Facebook Sues Over 'Data-Grabbing' Quizzes (bbc.com) 39
Facebook is suing Andrew Gorbachov and Gleb Sluchevsky, of Ukraine, who worked for a company called Web Sun Group that developed "data-grabbing" quizzes for its social media site. The malicious quiz apps were used to harvest thousands of users' profile data. "The firm says anyone who wanted to take the quizzes was asked to install browser extensions, which then lifted data ranging from names and profile pictures to private lists of friends," reports the BBC. "These were installed about 63,000 times between 2016 and October 2018, it says." From the report: The quizzes, with titles such as "What does your eye color say about you?" and "Do people love you for your intelligence or your beauty?", gained access to this information via the Facebook Login system -- which enables connections between third party apps and Facebook profiles. While the system is intended to verify that such connections are secure, in this case, Facebook says, users were falsely told the app would retrieve only a limited amount of public data from their profiles. "In total, defendants compromised approximately 63,000 browsers used by Facebook users and caused over $75,000 in damages to Facebook," the company said in court documents first published by online news site The Daily Beast. The documents accuse the two men of breaking US laws against computer hacking as well as breaching Facebook's own terms of use.
"Do people love you for your intelligence or your (Score:3)
I guess that question answered itself.
Ummm...Pot, Kettle!? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just too funny! Facebook, one of the biggest data grabbing sites on earth suing someone over what Facebook itself does!!!!!
Re: (Score:2)
This is just too funny! Facebook, one of the biggest data grabbing sites on earth suing someone over what Facebook itself does!!!!!
Zuck the Data Mob Boss is pissed someone else tried to get in on his action.
At the end of the day, it's all about revenue for a corporation.
Re: (Score:2)
Pot and Kettle
hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why are you letting people take advantage of our users' personal information??"
"You said we could do that!!"
"No I didn't!"
"Yes you did!"
"I didn't mean it!"
This is ridiculous, and an attempt to shift blame from the rotten core.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think their complaint is scraping the info so much as not paying Facebook for it.
Re: (Score:2)
And they should be careful about calling that data scraping unauthorized systems access due to misleading users about what data they'd collect. That sets a precedent that solidly applies to Facebook.
Oh, so we can back out how much they value data (Score:2, Interesting)
All that work to induce you to give them all your info and it boils down to $0.84.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL (Score:2)
oh fucker turd, you so funny
Lawsuits over jail (Score:2)
Seize their assets.
Why did the Facebook API dish out the data? (Score:3)
How many other Apps are grabbing the data?
Why did Facebook create the ability of third party apps/extensions to grab such data?
OR the real crime here is that they grabbed the data without becoming "an official partner" of Facebook providing its users with "new and exciting services and products" who pay the required tribute to Facebook and share the spoils?
Re: (Score:2)
Why was the App able to grab the data?
Because people click on "Allow". If an app asks for data that it has no need to know, including your email, phone number, friends list, location, momentum, etc., about 80% of users will just allow everything.
How many other Apps are grabbing the data?
If the app is free, the data is how the coder makes money.
Why did Facebook create the ability of third party apps/extensions to grab such data?
Some apps have a legitimate need for the data. So Facebook allows them to ask. Is it Facebook's fault that most people just say "yes" to everything?
Re: Why did the Facebook API dish out the data? (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong. First, it wasn't an "app," it was a browser extension. Second, once it was installed it simply accessed your Facebook account via API, you don't have the ability to control what parts of your account it gets to access.
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Why was the App able to grab the data?
Because people click on "Allow". If an app asks for data that it has no need to know, including your email, phone number, friends list, location, momentum, etc., about 99.314% of users will just allow everything.
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
Why was the App able to grab the data?
How many other Apps are grabbing the data?
Why did Facebook create the ability of third party apps/extensions to grab such data?
This isn't dependent on any app. The way these data grabbing pages act is that the mark goes to the page - usually because some friend went to the webpage of whoever it was. So after getting to the "What Flavor Condom are You?" web page, they completely voluntarily type their personal info and give it to the website operators.
Apparently this was how Facebook posts were targeted to specific users during the 2016 campaign. If someone is willing to share intimate personal data with a website of indeterminate
Facebook is the only one allowed to steal info... (Score:2)
Anyone else doing that is "unfair competition"...
Didn't pay facebook for the data (Score:2)
So they sue.
Don't get between facebook and our data.
A buck twenty? That's what we're worth to Zuck? (Score:3)
Identity Theft is Facebook's business (Score:1)
That is their business model. Thing is they have got to be broken up, along with Google, Apple, Twitter, etc.
Pay no attention to the lizard behind the curtain (Score:2)
So they're suing somebody who used APIs they created that specifically enable snarfing up this kind of data? If FB had a problem with this, why the hell did they enable it in the first place?