Facebook Home destroys any notion of privacy
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
For another, any app with location services permissions can do exactly what he's describing.
Also what does "Android allows Facebook to do whatever it wants on the platform, and that means accessing the hardware as well," mean? Unless you're rolling your own version of Android (is that what's on the HTC First?) that's simply not true. You have access to a few things you don't on iOS but it's not "whatever you want" if you're putting it in the Play app store.
As far as I can tell this is just another third party launcher with the same privacy implications as any app that has GPS permissions.
It really boils down to how much you trust the company/app.
Google also use that data to provide a service (automatically call the navigation app to came back home at night or just give you a reminder on places you go every week). I doon't think facebook will give any kind of service other than keep my friens updated about whatever I do and wherever I go and this is frightening (not the fact that a big company has this data but the fact that everyone will know it)
It's PAINFULLY EASY to mark that information private, and to go into the Platform settings and make sure your friends "cannot bring your information with them into apps and websites".
It's two screens and takes about thirty seconds for you to control your Facebook and how much data leaves it.
Seriously guys, don't blame Facebook for your incompetence with their privacy settings.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57565408-71/teacher-faces-...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354515/Teacher-sack...
"The scary part is that these would be bundled by OEM's and might be harder to stop and even uninstall".
I understand that now instead of worrying about unsupported apps you have to worry about what these apps track in the background, however there are a number of other phone options - why not just use another?
The appeal of this Launcher is there, it seems like a fairly clean interface that is satisfying to use, but like Facebook.com, if you don't feel comfortable using it, then you don't have to.
Really it's just so easy in the tech blog world to get page views by decrying whatever Facebook does as an invasion of privacy and that's what Om is doing. He should be ashamed for writing such a brainless piece of linkbait.
Facebook doesn't need any apologists, least of all from the HN community. Whether the article is linkbait or not, Facebook does need constant critique. Om Malik points out that Facebook Home means a new kind of persistent data-gathering wrapped in a trendy (?) skin that most facebook users will want to try out. It is bad enough that a billion people blithely use their web and phone apps without them having something that sinks its hooks in deeper
It's pure linkbait and Om should be ashamed for writing something so poor.
Facebook is consistently under a giant lens and receives critiques with every step it takes. Instead of actually taking some rational side to the argument, Om simply scaremongers.
"Informed consumers" make up (at a guess) less than 5% of the overall smartphone market, for some value of being informed about online privacy.
Privacy advocates should raise hell about the potential issues of a facebook-image smartphone now if there's any chance of increasing awareness of the issues outside of "privacy enthusiast" circles.
This 'Online Privacy' I've seen thrown around is such a general term that encapsulates both explicit and anonymous data. Facebook isn't outing people or sharing your phone number with anyone who asks for it. Much of what they do with the data is provide contextual ads or information to a user that helps improve their lives as well.
Until people realize this separation, there is too much of a witch hunt in the name of 'online privacy.'
So it's fine because less than 10% of all people can avoid it?
Take a step out of your tech-bubble for a moment (or maybe a bit longer, it's really educational).
A side-related example. Most people that aren't really into tech, as well as most people outside the age range of, say, 14-40, are completely unable to avoid accidentally installing browser toolbars. These are not dumb people. They know what toolbars are, how they get on their system, and what to look out for. Still, it happens. Because, oops. But they are unable to get rid of them, because even if they knew where to look, they wouldn't know which of the installed programs would be safe to remove.
That's just an example, because it's just something in particular I see all the time, right now. Shit that happens to otherwise really clever and smart people. And it's even worse when I see it happen to more vulnerable parts of the population.
This is the sort of thing that inspires whitehat hackers to do what they do. I recall that RSnake of the discontinued ha.ckers.org weblog, spoke about how this motivated him in the fight against XSS and other browser-based attacks, even if it was "just" about really silly misleading "social engineering trick" type of attacks that a smart (tech-smart) person would never fall for, but your mother or grandmother might!
So yeah, good for you. But really, this discussion isn't about you, do you really think the people in this thread are getting upset because they fear they themselves cannot avoid this? No, this bothers me because my mom is on Facebook and uses it on her mobile phone, my less-technical friends are on Facebook, the children that I teach and their definitely-not-technical parents are on Facebook!
I guess I failed to go into the fact my various purchasing practices were just how I was raised. My father, mother and grandmother would do the same thing as I would. Of course, you're still right in a larger sense: that doesn't help those that weren't raised by my parents.
This is a perfect opportunity for consumer advocate groups to step in and inform people. I don't see how each of us being critical of such a move does anything to help those that would otherwise not have the education about potential privacy issues. I do what I can when friends and family ask me for purchasing advice and I take it very seriously. I keep myself informed in a way that others may not.
I don't want to say I'm changing the world, but really, technology is going to progress, this Launcher is extremely unique and could see quite a few copy cats going the same route (most likely without the support of a major hardware manufacturer) - this is an extremely good potential teaching moment for those that would otherwise not know. I'm just doing what I can to help those that ask for it.
We can't trust the sales people because frankly, they seem less informed than even the average consumer - they just want to sell you the latest phone and renew that 2-year contract. But there are quite a few organizations out there that could probably use more support and increase the proper awareness.
I'm just always of the school that the responsibility is ultimately on the individual, so anything to help that individual make the best and most educated decision is something I think will always lead towards the best results.
> So yeah, good for you. But really, this discussion isn't about you, do you really think the people in this thread are getting upset because they fear they themselves cannot avoid this? No, this bothers me because my mom is on Facebook and uses it on her mobile phone, my less-technical friends are on Facebook, the children that I teach and their definitely-not-technical parents are on Facebook!
Not sure why you need to take this sort of tone, and I also don't see what's inherently wrong with people using Facebook in the first place. If people want quicker access to an App they use all the time in a pretty slick looking interface then then let them consume. Do your part and answer any potential questions they may have and perhaps even interject some technical opinion (without going over the line into lecturing, of course) to help raise their awareness.
My phone didn't come with Facebook installed, although it did have a link in the accounts section to install the application.
Except for the part where no other app collects or maintains anywhere near as much data about your personal history, your friends, what you look like, what your friends look like, what you like, what your friends like, who you talk to, what you talk about, what your friends talk about, which services you subscribe to, where you went to school, where you worked, when you worked, when you graduated, when you began a relationship, when you ended a relationship, your sexual preferences...
I could keep going.
That said – Facebook's long record of privacy over-reaches is well established. My hunch is that given the high value a smartphone, and its data, has in people's lives, a position of caution is probably a lot more reasonable than plugging one's ears and saying "Everything is going to be just fine."
Software is changeable. Who knows what they'll do once they're entrenched.
Who knows what will become possible.
They really couldn't. Facebook benefits from network effects they've spent years building. You pour data into Facebook because your friends are there. Other apps would find the same data much harder to collect at scale.
Regardless, this isn't a hypothetical could situation. Facebook is real. And Facebook does these things. More successfully than anyone else. And now they want to saddle up on your phone's most-used piece of UI. All that data, floating past that one crucial screen. Now.
That's a big responsibility for a company with a less-than-stellar track record on privacy.
No, it doesn't. I was, till recently, using Nova Launcher and its permissions would pale in comparison with Facebook Messenger's permissions. Mind it, I am not mentioning the full fledged Facebook app here but just the messenger. I am just uninstalling it, to hell with those in my friend list who have virtually ditched all other communication media.(never looked at it's permissions before today)
Why, when WhatsApp and all other apps might be doing it(not mentioning any G app)? Track record. Facebook is a history-sheeter when it comes to privacy and the pledge to keep repeating their act is their business model. Otherwise Google already has everything I do.
>>You have access to a few things you don't on iOS but it's not "whatever you want"
Though it's technically true, the whatever you want part; but the part "have access to a few things you don't on iOS" is such an understatement that it leans towards being a bs.
Here's what I mean by that last part: the facebook site/service are all about poking holes in your own privacy (in a controlled manner); it's just that currently, you might be carefully letting out bits of information, but facebook is off to the side hawking all of it to all comers, trying to be profitable.
But yeah I agree, at its current stage of gestation as a company, facebook doesn't give a rat's ass about the privacy of your data.
Facebook is not some new company struggling to find its way in the world. It's huge.
Nor is it new. Google was started in 1998; Facebook in 2004. So Google is 15 and Facebook is 9.
Is that such a big difference? Has Google ever behaved the way Facebook has?
Facebook has faced multiple privacy scandals. It has not said, "whoops, that was an oversight, we'll ensure it never happens again." It has said "meh," and waited for people to get over it.
This is not about maturity, this is about philosophy and character. Facebook's business model is about harvesting and exploiting your data. They are doing that deliberately, and they're more likely to go out of business than to change.
I don't trust their app (look at the email address change nonsense), let alone a bigger one, and the page renders just fine in a mobile browser. I also find the whole "ping me when a close friend does or says anything" aspect of the app as I've seen others use it to be a little obsessive and possibly even creepy.
Other people will install it without thinking about the implications.
"Nobody will be harmed by this."
What definition of 'harm' are we using? Because they've already shown that given access to people's address books they cause trouble.
However, someone who has already installed the normal app doesn't need much more trust to add Home as well.
The problem here is in your friendship, not Facebook.
But there is definitely the potential for stalker-ish stuff there. I suppose in that case, yes the friendship would be the problem.
--edit-- But when the friendship isn't in question, I guess I find it a bit weird and overly-reliant on FB to have your phone set up to alert you every time a 'close' friend does anything.
1) this article is based upon hypothetical notions about what Home "may" do, despite it being not even released yet
2) Google has collected user data for ages via Android for Google Now and few complained about privacy issues -- all data from its various accounts are aggregated into one centralized location to target ads more effectively for users. If you're really going to cry about privacy issues you need to be fair here and hold everyone accountable, and not just sites you may not like.
3) The majority of people may not care, frankly -- people optimizes their utility differently.
Everyone complains about Google's privacy issues. I remember having a class discussion on it a couple of years ago.
> Facebook is going to use all this data — not to improve our lives — but to target better marketing and advertising messages at us
It's entirely possible that better targeted marketing and advertising can "improve" our lives. To state this outcome as a dire dystopian end point is making a huge cynical assumption about the motives of companies and commerce in general. I honestly believe that Facebook (and Google for that matter) actually want to improve our lives. I honestly believe that they think that they can introduce advertising in such a way that it's a win win for both parties, at least for a significant number of people.
That doesn't mean I'm naive about things, or even agree. But to see this assumption - that these companies are out to intentionally make our lives worse - written into editorial reporting as if it's a foregone conclusion, is disappointing.
"but to target better marketing and advertising messages at us" does not equal "are out to intentionally make our lives worse". His point is that is clear that FB _will_ benefit from the newly acquired data. You have confidence we all _might_ benefit. The OP points out FB's history, which is undeniably historic in how it has challenged social norms for privacy. It is also no secret that FB (and Google, and ...) make money from advertising, and that rich datasets of details about people make for financially richer advertisers. Skepticism (maybe a little cynicism, even) is not unhealthy or "mean", in this context.
Also its kind of naive to expect facebook to respect privacy when all they do is deal with data.
If Facebook forks Android, do you think people are willing to give up Google's ecosystem in exchange for Facebook's?
Even if you find Facebook chat / messages a viable replacement for Gtalk / Gmail, this still means no access to Google Play Store.
Amazon was willing to create a second competing marketplace and sell its devices as media players, but Facebook will not have those in place if they fork Android. Do you think Facebook has enough leverage to pull this off?
I don't think so, but since the phone is already in the works time will tell.
I don't think this really happened very much, but I'd love to see some numbers. Maybe a lot of tech enthusiasts waited on upgrading to stick with Google Maps until the new Google Maps came out.
> Amazon was willing to create a second competing marketplace and sell its devices as media players, but Facebook will not have those in place if they fork Android. Do you think Facebook has enough leverage to pull this off?
I would be surprised if Facebook went this way and didn't stay within the bounds other phone makers do and get Google certification. There is no reason why Google wouldn't allow Facebook to sell a phone with Google Play on it.
Also the tech crowd do they marketing for Google. Goodwill and great services are their marketing tools and that seems to be working very well for them so far. Just look at this site and reddit to see how vehemently people support Google.
More likely they just want people to spend more time using Facebook.
A little sensationalized? It's most definitely a strong mix of both sides, not everyone at Facebook is "evil". Honestly I think most of us can agree Facebook on average is useful service that has improved our lives. So yes it will probably help target us, the product, better to marketing/advertising.
As more and more promising services get absorbed or shutdown maybe it'll get clearer and clearer that if you dont want your data to be the product itself then we should start paying for the services we care about.
Devil's Advocate: Note everyone in the third reich was evil.
p.s. No need to mention Godwin's law. I know about it.
Indeed, my non-technical friends have only the vaguest idea that their usage has a correlation with the ads (Facebook isn't exactly full-disclosure about how their targeted ad model works). This is especially true with kids. You think my 13 year old nephew understands the privacy implications of using Facebook?
There is also the worry of what happens when Facebook stops being "the good guys" (which is a possibility for any corporation). What happens when the constant push to meet analyst expectations causes them to monetize user data in more and more insidious ways? I don't think anyone thought at first that the credit card companies were "evil", but the whole credit card/credit score mafia is doing legitimately devestating things to many peoples' lives now. Some people can't get jobs because of their credit scores. What happens when Facebook starts selling user data to employers doing background checks? Do we just assume that Facebook is full of "people like us" so they would never do that?
Without getting into an argument of which is worse, I think ultimately Facebook is more dangerous. Facebook has tremendous network effects and lock-down effects. I can switch from Google to DDG easily, but as long as my family in Bangladesh uses Facebook to post pictures of my nieces and nephews, my ability to switch away from Facebook is limited.
And I don't personally care--I'm not a private person and anything you want to know about me is probably on the internet. But I'm making an informed decision (within the constraints of the fact that Google and Facebook don't disclose exactly how they use your information, but I assume the worst). In my experience, most people who use Google and Facebook aren't.
Don't get me wrong. I think this stuff is useful. But there needs to be more transparency and more restraint than there is. A ban on collecting data on minors would be a start.
People seem to forget that it was the original targeted advertising. You subliminally got targeted by demographic specific ads based on the type of shows you were interested in. It just so happens that the way Google and Facebook do it is way more high tech.
The data goes into their platform, they dont' sell it. I think maintaining a healthy paranoia is good and we should pressure the companies to be better with our data. However, as long as they maintain security as a strong value, I think it'll be ok. At least I myself personally don't mind them holding my data as long as it is secure and private to me.
Not unless you have a Nielsen box.
2) Indeed the point you make about non-techie friends is relevant but you miss the point -- most people don't care about these issues if the result is an amazingly useful tool. So what if ads are correlated with usage: god-forbid you see something interesting that you may want to buy or is relevant to your tastes. And honestly it's no more true that FB 'gives' your data away any more than Google 'gives' away your Gmail/Gdrive/Picassa/etc. data.
As an aside, Google Now is pretty awesome, and I trust our Google Overlords to not use my personal information for evil.
What do you consider "evil"? You must already accept that they are, or plan to, sell your personal information to advertisers - because why else would they bother setting this service up? Purely for your convenience? So you've made your peace with that, and don't consider it evil, which is entirely up to you. But someone else may feel very differently about this.
Passively complaining (while at the same time, ironically, including FB buttons) without taking actual actions does nothing.
All your privacy is gone. Again. Give up your privacy again for the very first time. All your privacy is gone again. Better.This is what prevents me from getting too invested in a mobile ecosystem like Android or iOS. I like smartphones, but I want the device to serve me, not Google or Facebook's advertisers.
They could already have if they wanted to- they own the code for the stock launcher, after all.
Hopefully not, though. I hope this whole thing is a disaster for Facebook.
It hinges on the GPS location, which Apple does, quite publicly with theing like Find my iPhone. Google does that already, and so do every other GPS device on earth. I don't even need to know if you are stationary at one location every night. I can just connect the dots on your end points of your trips and figure it out.
Heck even an app like Yelp can figure my home address, based on my restaurant searches. Facebook already knows much more about us, with or without our permission; just by using the website.
If "the problem" is more relevant advertising, I for one, welcome Facebook Home. When advertising becomes useful to me I might stop blocking it.
I think the pining for FirefoxOS is only meaningful if Mozilla takes a stand on privacy or the like. And they're not in a strong position to do so.
ideally, i would like to hook and script a conditional firewall of sorts between any apps and my hardware or data. for example, i dont want any app querying my location when i am at home or at work. how awesome would it be to set rules like this?
some invasive permissions are ok when i choose to allow them, but not indefinitely so long as the app lives on my phone, which is the situation right now. i can do a lot of quasi-scripting with Tasker for android, but not nearly enough.
18% of internet users use firefox. thats a lot of eyeballs google would be missing out on without the search deal in place. they gets much more out of that arrangement than mozilla does to have any leverage. MS would be equally happy to pay mozilla for that 18%. moz can easily find many other avenues to make money while goog cannot find an extra 18% user base elsewhere.
The phone’s GPS can send constant information back to the Facebook servers,
telling it your whereabouts at any time.
Focusing just on the privacy side ignores all the benefits from giving a service more information. Facebook isn't tricking users into this. Users want it.
Question: if one of my fb friends installs this or buys that phone, will fb have any additional access to MY personal data?
Unless you SMS or call that person. Then maybe.
It would be entirely optional to use that widget, however, unless FB Home is able to replace the lock screen itself. As far as I know, that can't be done without rooting the device.
Now, whether or not it replaces the lock screen when it has a passcode/security, is a different story.
But, by default, your FB info is available just by tapping the unlock button/home button BUT BEFORE you unlock.
I know a guy who works at one of Facebook's "partner companies" that pays gobs for FB user data. This partner company gets (as far as they can tell) fully-populated user data in Facebook's user dumps - way, way more information than they need or ask for. So the partner company puts this data through arduous preprocessing steps to filter out most of the details before any user data hits real systems. They're scared of the legal liability of holding onto all the personal details they receive don't need but Facebook shares anyway because Facebook genuinely doesn't care as long as they're monetizing.
So yeah, I'm scared of where this new data is going to go. Not what FB uses it for themselves.
But 'deleting' an account probably doesn't do much more than remove the data from the immediate web services. My data has probably been sold to multiple 3rd parties by now.
If you think they delete the data at all from anywhere you're out of your mind. Records are tombstoned, moved to cold(er) storage for efficiency and then not displayed. Certainly not deleted.
http://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/21-09-12--Facebook-Ireland... (section 2.10 - page 41)
I find it odd that Facebook isn't scared of the same legal liability. Infact, they should be more scared. I don't see any reason why Facebook would give away more information than they need to. They have the skill and resources to filter data themselves. I highly doubt that they would throw away personal and sensitive to other companies.
You don't understand how partnerships work in this case. Facebook is paid to provide data according to a contract between the two companies. That's it. They have many, many such contracts to fulfill with many partners. These contracts don't say "we provide exactly the data you ask for, no more, no less" because that is a lot, lot more work and at the end of the day the contracts still get signed and FB still gets paid. A lot. Where do you see legal liability for FB so far? Their terms of service fully permit this data sharing, and the contracts are just between FB and partner companies.
Meanwhile, the partner companies use the shared data to produce value-added products which they provide to their customers under existing contracts and policies. They can't violate their customer's privacy or rights under any of the existing such policies, which are not identical to FB's. In fact, depending on the industry of the partner company, these policies can be extremely different. It is up to the partner company - not Facebook - to comply with the partner company's contracts/policies.
> I don't see any reason why Facebook would give away more information than they need to.
Facebook doesn't see any reason why they should waste time withholding more data than they need to. They still get paid the same amount, and the partner companies just filter out what they don't want. What's the point? There isn't even a big long-term concern here for Facebook, since extra social data isn't exactly very useful years later.
> They have the skill and resources to filter data themselves.
You say that, but every large technology company has to prioritize what they use engineering manpower for. Not everything a company can do or wants to do ends up getting done. For example, you might say "Facebook has the skill and resources to delete data from their CDN. I highly doubt they would throw away money on byte stored in Akamai" and yet they didn't do so for years and probably still don't. And that's a far easier problem with real measurable costs. Compare that to filtering the same enormous data set differently for each partner company when there's no compelling business reason to do so. The contracts are still going to be signed and Facebook will still get paid. Why should anyone care?
> I highly doubt that they would throw away personal and sensitive to other companies.
This is something FB is doing and have been doing for years. So your doubts are baseless.
I think you answered your own question with: pays gobs
Since you're the one claiming otherwise, how about an actual, verifiable example? "Company X paid Facebook $Y for user data Z" doesn't sound like an unreasonably specific request.
But I'm not wrong that data is shared liberally and unnecessarily in these data-sharing agreements, which was actually the point. And I'm not wrong that those agreements are commercial in nature with Facebook receiving something in return. Or are you saying Facebook's data-sharing agreement system is a giant charity program. So I'm still okay with calling commercial data-sharing agreements "selling user data."