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Comment by hodder | Hacker News Reader

Yes they have immense amounts of personal data and that is worrying. It is worrying they share this data with government agencies, marketing agencies etc.

BUT, unlike Equifax they haven't been completely compromised by hackers. Equifax is unique it's level of incompetence. I'm surprised the equity is holding up as well as it is. The company is grossly negligent.

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To me the difference is I signed up with Facebook, even though I rarely use it any more. I created a Gmail account, and I use Google for searches. All of those were options presented to me, with alternatives - there are other ways to stay in touch with friends, to send and receive email, to search the internet.

There is no reasonable way to participate in modern society without a bank account, a cell phone, and water+electricity to my home. So I had no choice but to allow Equifax to have my data, even though if presented with any alternative I would not have.

Not only that but Facebook and Google collect personal data voluntarily, to some extent. Equifax leaked THE personal identifier used in the U.S which affects a persons livelihood.

I'm not worried out Facebook getting hacked and someone getting 10 years worth of photos, shopping data, or browsing history. Even credit cards have better protection than what Equifax has for SSNs.

And again, the consumers who shoulder the burden of this catastrophic data breech had absolutely no say in who brokered the SSNs.

> It is worrying they share this data with government agencies, marketing agencies etc

Facebook and Google are marketing/advertising agencies.

30 mil US accounts on FB were scraped using Mechanical Turk in an ingenious way. No hacking was required.

I don't think that for many it matters if their data was obtained through hacking or through legal means.

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/30/facebook-failed-to-prote...

You don't have your social security number and loans on your Facebook profile (or maybe you do). However whatever you put on Facebook was your choice. Nobody "posts" to Equifax.

I agree with you, but things are changing. Facebook can create a shadow profile on you, friends can tag you into pictures without your consent, when you delete data it will still remain in Google caches and you will need to individually request removal for each URL, because it won't automatically remove them if the original page from FB is gone.

I'm sure some do.

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

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