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Comment by tacone | Hacker News Reader

For years companies have been steadily asking, mandating or even trickling users to give them their phone numbers under the excuse of security (while the real reasons were different), now what?

How can they be trusted anymore?

This also strikes a great point about the data sharing between Facebook and WhatsApp. Linking data between services augments the dangers and the consequences are not obvious to the end user.

I think Facebook should offer their users the option to remove their phone numbers with a real deletion.

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> I think Facebook should offer their users the option to remove their phone numbers with a real deletion.

Man sometimes I think people forget phone books existed for a long time.

I had the same feeling. It seems the two things here in question is my phone number (which luckily I never gave fb), and my email which it seems every spammer in the world already seems to have?

I noticed this even back when phonebooks were a thing that a 'private' number was not something random people should call. Yet the reality is that number is kind of public but not. If you did accidently call one you would get 'how did you get this number' from the person you called.

Judging by the amount of phone calls I get these days. They have also already correlated a huge number of these. Short of me changing my number every few years there is not much I can do. I am getting cold calls on property I bought 20+ years ago and them asking if I want to sell.

At the bottom of this though is the 'data' these companies are scouring on us. Then cross correlating it. I have for the past few years come to the conclusion data is harmful to keep for both the end users and the companies that do it. Companies like google and fb seem to be of a very different opinion. Companies should be going into collecting data with 'how do we get rid of it after some period of time', not lets buy more HD to keep it on.

> Man sometimes I think people forget phone books existed for a long time.

If the notion were introduced today, nobody would tolerate them. That they once existed is hardly an argument that such things are a good idea.

Not to mention that all people I knew growing up opted to have their numbers removed from the phone books. People don’t want their number to be visible to everyone.

And you had to pay monthly for that 'service' -- for them to NOT publish your number.

the phone book are completely a different animal. As example they are almost useless to reverse lookup a number...

Reverse phone books were a thing. They were harder to get but libraries had them.

I can see a few (a lot) of differences between a phone book and Facebook in this analogy.

well yea, they aren't "really" the same thing. It was just phone numbers weren't considered all that private back then.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just a hot take

Back then you could ask the phone company to unlist your number... and they actually did it.

Also, back then, it wasn't feasible for random people online to put your information into endless databases to be called on repeat by auto-dialers. Back when phone books were prevalent was not the same world. It is an excellent point that phone numbers (and even addresses!) were considered public for a long time. However, I think there is plenty reason for the conscious consumer to want their number to be more private, in light of where we are today. Today, someone can use your phone number and address to steal your identity, harass you, use it to get more information, etc.

>How can they be trusted anymore?

They never could be.

Further, I think sovereigns should mandate a class-action monetary compensation from F'book to each and every user affected, as a pre-req for further continued operation in each national jurisdiction.-

This, of course, due fines aside ...

Edit: See my further comment upthread on this, or other solutions.

Facebook should also offer complete opt out from any tracking. Their model where they offer their service for "free", but harvest tonnes of personal data and then use them for targeted advertising, should be regulated. If your family is on Facebook and you want to maintain contact with them, it is next to impossible to move everyone on a platform that respects privacy. I think an option where you pay monthly and in exchange your personal data is not being used should be mandated by law.

I agree with much of what you say here and I think it would be an improvement. Personally, I still wouldn't use a tracking-less Facebook because:

1. I don't trust Facebook to not track me. When I left Facebook for good in 2014 it was because, for the second time after setting all my settings as private as I could (show photos only to friends, etc.), Facebook somehow reverted everything to "public".

2. Their algorithm is still aimed at generating controversy rather than truth, and that's enough for me to not use it.

Certainly I cannot be the only one who finds phone numbers, email addresses, and many other things quite inconsequential compared to name and address.

In particular, there could easily be a postal system implemented where the sender would not need the actual physical address of the receiver. The receiver could easily ask the postal service to generate an arbitrary key which could either be single use, or multiple use, in order to deliver, so that one could receive mail and packages without having to surrender information regarding one's place of residence to the sending party.

Recently, I was hand delivered something from my sports club at my address as an apology for COVID. All quite considerable but I'm not so comfortable with that apparently my physical address is known to arbitrary members of said club, and that I was required to give it in order to sign up, which is necessary with modern technology.

There is no theoretical need to surrender one's physical address to join a sports club in theory, but physical addresses are exchanged everywhere as though there be no problem with this. They are of course the easiest way to stalk and harm someone.

So much of what is considered private "PII" today was considered public information only a generation ago. When I was a kid (1970s):

- Names, addresses, and phone numbers were published by the phone company in a book and given to everyone.

- Hospital admissions/discharges were published in the local newspaper.

- Social Security Number was used for everything. Many people included it on their pre-printed checks. Engraving it on valuable personal posessions was encouraged, for help identifying them if they were stolen.

None of this was considered a real violation of privacy, or at least I never heard anyone really express any concerns about it. Unlisted phone numbers were a thing, but very few people had them and it cost extra to have one. Most people wanted to be in the phone book so others could contact them.

I guess the big thing that's changed is identity theft is now a thing. That's because it's become possible to "identify" yourself by providing enough information about yourself without actually being physically present. Also online harassment/doxxing. All of which is only a problem because everything and everyone is online now. That is the real problem, not the information itself. Of course there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.

> None of this was considered a real violation of privacy, or at least I never heard anyone really express any concerns about it. Unlisted phone numbers were a thing, but very few people had them and it cost extra to have one. Most people wanted to be in the phone book so others could contact them.

Yes, and I think it was wrong to do so.

I think it's ridiculous to be worried about websites tracking one's noncorporeal identity tied to an integer on the internet compared to that everyone in my sport's club can easily retrieve my physical place of residence.

Phone number is a primary second factor for most people, and either a phone number or an email address is required to authenticate the person logging in is really the owner of the account in many instances such as logging in from a different computer.

Google does the same, they've even published a paper showing just adding an email address is enough to eliminate 90+% of phishing attempts.

> ... Linking data between services augments the dangers and the consequences are not obvious to the end user.

Or the end user's friends and family who's privacy was also affected by being in the user's contact list.

Obligatory:

"People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks." -Mark Zuckerberg

> with a real deletion

Lol.

>For years companies have been steadily asking, mandating or even trickling users to give them their phone numbers under the excuse of security (while the real reasons were different), now what? >How can they be trusted anymore?

I don't know if they can. I had specific conversations about things life preferring TOTP to phone in internship and job interviews, but I struggled to land the prestigious roles others did, though people I've spoken with informally certainly like to parrot key phrases I liked to use when we'd socialize at conferences.

What does the last sentence have to do with trust?

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