
Sex lives of app users 'shared with Facebook' - jfk13
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49647239
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0xmohit
Also discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20921531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20921531)

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kinkrtyavimoodh
It pains me to see PhDs from all spheres of engineering and beyond getting
funneled into a few companies, drawn by the easy money (for people not in the
know, you can easily start your post-PhD career at a big corp with a salary of
above 300K USD per year, and that is if you don't negotiate strongly), doing
some variation of gradient descent and creating products that are absolutely
immoral.

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cameronbrown
Anyone would be drawn by "easy money" if they were swimming in debt.

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bilbo0s
To be fair, anyone would be drawn by that money even if they weren't swimming
in debt. People need to realize that times are hard for a lot of people.
USD300,000 is a lot of money to the vast majority of working Americans. Law of
averages says that at least some of those Americans will be smart enough to
get a PhD. So you're gonna have PhD's out there who, yes, will jump at the
chance to make 300 bands.

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atonse
This is the other side of the coin regarding the debate of whether Apple
should build its own first party versions of these kinds of apps.

When Apple announced period tracking in its Health app, there was another
round of articles of how Apple eats its own from the app store.

I mostly agree that it's problematic that Apple runs the App Store AND
competes with other apps on it. But we have to take this sort of thing into
consideration too.

But we have found again and again, that these third party apps have absolutely
no data protections and will happily sell your data to other entities.

So if you want to track your period (and other such sensitive data) and not
have your sex life sold to everyone, use the first party app. Even Apple can't
see your data.

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smacktoward
There's nothing stopping Apple (or any other app store vendor) from creating a
middle ground, by requiring third parties to agree in advance to a strong set
of data-handling and privacy rules in order to sell apps in their store. They
could even periodically audit those third-party products; failure to live up
to the terms the third party agreed to when they published the app would be
pretty solid grounds for kicking them out of the store.

That stuff would cut into the planet-size hoard of profit Apple makes off the
app store, though, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

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RussianCow
It would also be nearly impossible to enforce. How would Apple be able to
verify that a company is complying with these terms? I don't think many
companies would be happy to let Apple poke around in their backend, just as I
don't think Apple wants to spend the resources to do that.

Edit: "impossible" -> "nearly impossible"

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colechristensen
Write in compliance requirements with provisions for regular third party
audits.

If personal data companies don’t start regulating themselves they will get it
forced on them by the government. Financial, medical, and defense companies
already do it.

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smacktoward
Isn't that why Zuck invented Facebook in the first place?

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nafizh
"Facebook has announced it will launch a tool for users to stop apps and
businesses sharing their data with the social network."

What a joke!!

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jar_cup_bowl
The qualm here should be with the app developers, not Facebook. The app makers
chose to use an advertisement company's SDK (Facebook) to monetize their app
by sharing data and showing personalized adds.

Everyone knows thats facebook's whole business model and they aren't shy about
it. If you're developing an app that collects personal data, its in your hands
to make sure its shared appropriately.

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GauntletWizard
The qualm should be with both. You should be upset with people selling poison
as a health drink, and you should be upset with people reselling it as well.

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Blackstone4
Having initially been against GDPR (with hindsight that was a knee jerk
reaction), I am now in favour of it. Many large companies have been able to
collect data and use it as they liked with impunity. In the past, users have
had limited rights when it came to their data and GDPR has changed that.

EDIT - wow I got downvoted for being in favour of GDPR!?

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magduf
>wow I got downvoted for being in favour of GDPR!?

Absolutely, yes. Remember, this site is chock full of people in adtech, and
the GDPR works directly against their employers' goals. Remember the old
saying: "It is very difficult to get a man to understand something when his
salary depends on him not understanding it." On top of that, software people
in the US skew disproportionately libertarian, and they think that any law
curtailing business behavior, no matter how abhorrent, is bad and that we
should rely on "the invisible hand" to regulate everything.

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switzer
I think that many people who work in ad tech are in favour of GDPR. They have
seen the mishandling of personal data on a massive scale first hand. This is
true in my case.

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Blackstone4
There is a view out there that European regulation around data/tech is anti-
American. A certain level of patriotism which wants to protects the profits of
the nation's pride and joy.

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tdy721
I was sure this would be about cybersex on messenger. Oh, hey there kettle!

