Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/12/20/facebook-shared-user-data-with-other-tech-giants/
Facebook has been caught sharing data on its 2.2 billion users with other tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify, and even Russian search giant Yandex. Apple is in the list too, but not in a way that makes sense.
"Facebook empowered Apple to hide from Facebook users all indicators that its devices were asking for data. Apple devices also had access to the contact numbers and calendar entries of people who had changed their account settings to disable all sharing, the records show.
Apple officials said they were not aware that Facebook had granted its devices any special access. They added that any shared data remained on the devices and was not available to anyone other than the users."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html?module=inline
Thanks. I don’t usually read through yet another corporate privacy story but this one seems pretty wide-ranging and significant. It reveals a lot of Facebook deal-making with user’s data but also rampant carelessness in the technical systems controlling access and managing that access over time. It also shows another failure by federal regulators to do their jobs.
[Apple] added that any shared data remained on the devices and was not available to anyone other than the users.
That’s an important distinction. There’s a big difference between the Calendar and Contacts apps on your iPhone accessing your Facebook data and corporate servers somewhere accessing it. Such access may also be used with Siri so
According to Facebook, most of its data partnerships fall under an exemption to the F.T.C. agreement. The company argues that the partner companies are service providers — companies that use the data only “for and at the direction of” Facebook and function as an extension of the social network.
Was a Facebook representative smirking while they were saying that? These “partnerships” are clearly not what the exemption was meant for, the former F.T.C. officials indicated as much.
I’d like to quit Facebook but I don’t have a replacement for maintaining contact with family and friends that are not as close. I’ve gotten to know one cousin in particular in a way I never would have if not for what she writes there.
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There’s multiple dimensions to this issue & problem, of which Facebook is a good poster child among a growing list brought into the light:
The lure of something with a free cash price vs paying with something (your privacy) of commercial value.
The profound mass ignorance & delusion that small bits of personal info are inconsequential, i.e., the failure to view what the synergistic pile of bits yields. It’s the assemblage of bits that invades privacy and has commercial value!
Business models based on hoovering up personal data w/o sufficient disclosure, user transparency & control.
Humans’ lazy nature, to not read long obfuscating legalese, commonly exploited by the computer industry. In many cases add in inability to decipher what it really means. And in all cases: a take it or leave it proposition.
Lack of Constitutional protection of privacy. And strong corporate lobbying & obfuscation against such rights.
Social media designs which deliberately facilitate compulsive, obsessive, narcissistic, insecure, attention-getting, and addictive behaviors. That media connects, but fosters not in healthy ways.
Regulatory capture by high tech combined with legislative paralysis & incompetency - more corporate exploitation.
A user population largely ignorant of all the ways personal dossiers have been and are used against them.
So what’s it going to take to cure this???! Fat chance, when human nature is at the core of the problem.
Though Facebook has a few millions of active members in the wake of all the scandals, advertising revenues continue to grow, though for the moment, a bit less than they had been a year ago. As long as ads in Facebook continue to produce good results for advertisers, a “cure” is unlikely.
US 2018 ad revenue:
A global perspective:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/422035/facebooks-quarterly-global-revenue/
But Amazon recently unified and greatly expanded its media network and offerings. They are expected to move into the #3 slot very soon:
https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/amazon-us-digital-ad-revenue-google-facebook-1202947923/
Most probably, this doesn’t make Facebook and Google very happy.