Facebook Is Using You

But- there is an interesting question in what is an appropriate use of our personal data w.r.t credit ratings, financial decisions, etc... Just like there are anti-discrimination laws that prevent mortgage servicers from altering policies based on race, perhaps there should be other walls to keep separate how our data can be used financially.

This is a question the NY Times should've posed instead of this clearly linkbaity uninteresting headline.

Anyway, here are some links and background if you aren't familiar with it. From http://freedomboxfoundation.org and http://freedomboxfoundation.org/learn

What is FreedomBox?

    Email and telecommunications that protects privacy and resists eavesdropping

    A publishing platform that resists oppression and censorship.

    An organizing tool for democratic activists in hostile regimes.

    An emergency communication network in times of crisis.

You are using Facebook, and Facebook is using you and your data.

"Using you" has a negative connotation, like a bad relationship. So what does Facebook do to "use you"? It shows tailored advertisements. By that standard, nearly every commercial entity on the web is "using you".

The article continues with non-Facebook-specific privacy issues, mostly focussing on law enforcement being able to access your data. If you got a problem with that you should take it up with your representation, not with those that simply comply with the law.

The problems with data aggregation are correctly identified, but not specific nor directly related to Facebook.

If an employer won't give you a job, because she found a drunk picture of you on your public profile, I really see only two people at fault: You yourself, and your employer (and maybe your local laws that allow for this to happen).

I think it is weak to point the finger at Facebook, when all they seem to do is facilitate you and others to give them data voluntarily.

I don't think its unreasonable to want some assurances that my creepy neighbor can't purchase my web history or FB data. Less facetiously, at the very least, I should be informed when an adverse decision has been based upon this information and should have a chance to review it periodically.

Here are a few examples:

> In Europe, laws give people the right to know what data companies have about them, but that is not the case in the United States.

This sentence primes the audience for a discussion of the laws, but that anticipation is never fulfilled. The article jumps to a new topic immediately.

> Ads that pop up on your screen might seem useful, or at worst, a nuisance. But they are much more than that. The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger — and you may never know why you’ve been turned down.

Yes advertising uses the same 'bits and bytes' about your life to determine targeted ads, but you can't co-mingle the idea of advertising and the drastic case of being turned down on insurance because of a Facebook posting you made.

The premise of the article is that Facebook uses you, in that they use your personal data. It's true, but they use your data for advertisement and not for the other more troubling purposes the article talks about.

The author appears to want to set up a slippery slope argument by saying that simply because a market exists for personal data beyond advertising, then Facebook will either (a) sell their corpus to those companies that already provide the service or (b) start providing those services themselves.

It's possible, but there's no evidence suggesting that it is occurring already or is likely to occur in the future---businesses don't enter new industries merely because they can; there's always a cost to diversifying and for Facebook the cost of selling user-data to let employers make hiring decisions is the loss of their dominance in social networking. Once its known that the information you give you Facebook can be used for more than advertising, people likely will stop giving that information. Facebook can make a one-time sale, but loses on the chance to continue reaping ad-profits.

Why would they kill their cash-cow and core business just for dubious short-term gain?

Secondly, I guess there's a fine line between "stereotyping" and statistics, isn't there?

Thirdly, the author looks at some of the worst offenses of this type of mining and seems to extrapolate it as the norm. FUD mongering.

If you've not ever worked in the media it's easy to underestimate the lengths they go to to work out who is consuming what and how to better channel ads at the lucrative targets, or how astonishingly detailed their information actually is. Your cable provider is probably far more evil than you imagine.

More to the point, companies that draw the wrong conclusions from data they have – changing credit limits without merit, targeting ads wrongly – will not be helping themselves.

And it goes without saying, for me anyway, that putting information online means putting it online. I don’t assume that Facebook’s interests are mine.

To me, the definition of “my data” is not claiming ownership of bits on FB’s servers. It means that if it’s on the Internet, it’s because I put it there, caveat emptor.

I don't support the implicit assumption that it is better to err on the side of leniency when it comes to credit provision. Inadequate information was as responsible as lack of oversight for causing the financial crisis. Racial discrimination is also a flawed analogy -- that was a case of using traits that had no bearing on credit risk to calculate a deliberately false appraisal, whereas using data on online activity is far more akin to the practice of requiring bank statements.

Granted, mistakes could very likely be made, but so far the author presents no evidence that using such information is any worse than other means of estimating credit.

At the heart of the problem is that the sharing of data is assymetric, which will prevent market forces from weeding out services that don't put a premium on ensuring their data is even accurate, let alone whether their conclusions are sound. In other words, I have no idea who is sharing what about me, or how it is actually affecting the decisions being made around me. Employers, banks, etc, don't do a post game wrap up where they show you the data mining services they use, and what they say about you (relevant aside: when I get these data mining pitches emailed to me, where did they get my email, and why do they think I may be interested in these services? I have no way of knowing). I may be able to curate my facebook data, but I can't curate an augean stable of ever changing services that I don't even use, or know exist.

Facebook does nothing to violate your privacy. The FBI intentionally spying on you without your consent or knowledge IS a violation of privacy.

This article does not really reveal anything that has not been already well documented, and most likely on the NYTImes.

But as these stories become more commonplace and the general public becomes informed of the true Facebook, I'm wondering if there will actually be people that care.

I can see as the kids that grew up on Google and Facebook become older that the idea of "privacy" becomes more obsolete and that they inherently trust the algorithms because they have always worked for them in the past.

I'm not saying that I agree with this and that I hope this is how it turns out, But maybe The Zuck is right after all.

I think there has to be a price to pay from the data aggregator side if they want information associated with my 'real' identity.

Which of course raises the question, what is the intended purpose of a facebook user…?

Seriously though. Facebook is a for profit company. I don't really think thats wrong or even ambiguous?

FB is an awful, monstrous growth on society. I'm sorry if this sounds like an over-reaction, but its pure, undiluted evil. Its reach is just way far too pervasive and the tracking on non-members is just plain illegal as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, people seem to have come to believe that society couldn't exist without it.

I'm (vainly probably) hoping that the flotation will, ultimately, be its downfall. Even existing toothless Regulation might scupper its share value enough to make it an obvious bubble investment -- and people might wake the fuck up and start to remember the real value of money, people and privacy again.