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Comment by common_ | Hacker News Reader

This isn't just basic cookie tracking. They have an actual profile on you, without your consent, with the people who have you in their address book and even potentially your purchasing habits, from the data they purchase from data brokers like Datalogix. They maintain this profile on you separately from other users, and they make immediate use of it if you create an account.

That's why it's called a shadow profile.

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How does such a practice differ morally from consumer credit reporting agencies?

You sign up for those when you get a credit card. You don't sign up for Facebook, they just start tracking you. You don't even have to go online for it to happen. They'll do it from your friend's profiles. It's quite different.

Ah, quite correct. I meant to say "Consumer reporting agencies" and let "credit" slip in there as a side-effect of my personal experience. :)

https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201604_cfpb_list-of-cons...

... but I think you answered the relevant question, which is that you consider opt-in to having your behavior tracked (even when that behavior interacts with third parties, e.g. visiting someone's website or buying a product from someone's company) morally key. I think the CFPB document I linked above indicates that this is not a universally-accepted principle.

> You sign up for those when you get a credit card

That is incorrect. Credit agencies create shadow profiles too, they call them 'thin files'. I have had to code around those situations.

Like Facebook they suck-up every scrap of data they can get from their sources. They absolutely do not throw away any of it just because you don't have a credit card ( else they'd omit half of Europe ).

It doesn't really - we need to get to a point where all of these surveillance companies are out of business.

Using data about a user with their consent seems perfectly fine. The fiction where this consent can be granted in perpetuity is not.

> Using data about a user with their consent seems perfectly fine. The fiction where this consent can be granted in perpetuity is not.

Not only that, but I think there is considerable trouble in interpreting consent when users cannot demonstrate or articulate a thorough understanding of exactly what such consent and data usage entails.

Unfortunately, as long as consumers can't be uniformly and universally trusted, there's but a market and a compelling, morally-acceptable use case for consumer tracking and reporting in that regard. So if what Facebook doesn't differ from consumer reporting in some other way, I don't see a compelling argument to toss it for the same reason I don't see a compelling argument to toss, say, return fraud tracking.

Is there any real evidence of "shadow profiles" or are people just speculating due to confirmation bias? If you give millions of mutual friend recommendations there's bound to be a few that hit.

I have on my phone Facebook app and Facebook Lite, on Lite I have a fake account that I intended to use to like other things (see beyond my bubble) short story -never used account. I receive push notification from Lite app to connect to new friends. People suggested are from my real account friend list and between the 2 accounts we don't have mutual accounts. I've visited my parents and suggestion to be friend with them pop up.

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