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Comment by bluedevil2k | Hacker News Reader

I read the entire article, but they don’t mention the details of how they’re going to make all your purchase history available to advertisers, and how they’re going to use this to track you around the internet even better to spam you with more ads of things you just bought. Maybe I just missed these details though…

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From the "Security and Protection" sub page[1].

> What you buy is your business. Your transactions are confidential—and aren't shared to your Newsfeed—unless you choose to share them.

So yeah. Confidentiality is defined as "not shared on your Newsfeed". Safe to assume Facebook is going to milk this data for all it's worth.

There are also some other whoppers:

> If there is an unauthorized Facebook Pay transaction on your account, customer support is always ready to help. Reach out via email 24 hours a day.

All I can say is: I'll believe it when I see it.

[1] https://pay.facebook.com/ca/security-and-protection/

They promise they won't force-publish your payments to your news feed. So generous!

Only long enough for an accidental-on-purpose bug to expose them anyway. Either that, or a new setting that defaults to on.

> ... customer support is always ready to help...

... with a canned response saying "sorry, nothing we can do!"

From the FAQ:

> Is there Purchase Protection for online shopping?

> Purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions, or through other messaging services don't qualify for Purchase Protection. Learn more about how Purchase Protection works on Facebook.

> Safe to assume Facebook is going to milk this data for all it's worth.

I'm no Facebook fan, but let's be honest. Your bank, credit card company, and merchants are all doing exactly the same thing. Perhaps the bank is regulated tightly enough that it isn't quite as bad, but the others definitely are.

Every single store that asks if you want a digital receipt in lieu of paper, is doing this. Every single store that gives you coupons in exchange for your your email, is doing this.

To note, credit card companies are open about this in the contracts you sign, and it’s their core business model so there is no possible surprise element.

Yeah but Facebook is primarily an advertising company, and one of the biggest advertising companies at that. They can much better leverage this data and milk it to a much greater extent. People aren't going to your bank or credit card company in order to buy ads targetting you.

> People aren't going to your bank or credit card company in order to buy ads targetting you.

But they do ?

https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/consumer-privac...

> In 1999, Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB).

...

> Under GLB, companies can sell their customers’ financial data to anyone they choose, including credit card information such as the date, amount, and recipient of charges, and the personal details consumers provide when they fill out applications. Consumers have no privacy under federal regulations unless they affirmatively take steps to “opt out” of this sharing, repeating the process for each and every financial service provider who may have data about them.

...

> Even this opt-out option is not available for consumers to stop credit card companies and issuing banks from sharing this data with their financial affiliates and financial “joint marketers,” a vaguely defined term that provides a giant loophole in privacy protections.

PS. Just to make sure - I'm not trying to defend Facebook here, or credit card companies.

They go through data brokers like Acxiom.

You're not wrong. What's troubling is combining that with information gleaned from from the "social graph" as well as well as all the surveillance Facebook does via its web trackers. I'd rather this stuff be stored in different silos by different competitors than centralized in one place.

Although IIRC Facebook already buys some of this info from data brokers so...

My bank (eu) has ver strict privacy controls. Not least of which was me telling them I'll leave if anything spammy appears. Cc company, same. Merchants? To be fair, Ialways expect an avalanche of crap after signing something, but...nothing yet. Eu rules in general, or I just got lucky?

Wait, so their solution to fraud is "send us an email and pray something happens"? Neat. If I could trust this thing less I would, but the word "Facebook" in the name already pegs it at zero, so... Hard pass.

And about storage, ok, read this:

Anti-fraud technology monitors purchases on our systems to detect unauthorized activity. Your payment method is not shared with buyers, sellers, or merchants without your consent, and is stored separately from your account data.

And tell me it doesn't say all payment data is stored on FB servers and mined by all their algorithms.

""" Facebook will receive your Facebook Pay order information and may use the data as outlined in our Data Policy. This includes showing your transaction information in your Facebook Pay settings. The actions you take with Facebook Pay can be used for purposes such as to serve you more relevant content, provide customer support, and promote safety and integrity (example: to investigate violations of our policies). The payment card numbers you provide won’t be shared with anyone for marketing purposes, used to personalize your experience nor inform the ads you see without your consent. Learn more about what Facebook Pay does with your payment information.

"""

Don't worry, some people who made their money from ads or ad-dependent business models will be along shortly to tell us how ads are actually a good thing, and targeted^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H "relevant" ads are even better.

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