
Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information - bogomipz
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/21/opinion/sunday/facebook-patents-privacy.html
======
hellllllllooo
It's crazy how the large companies file so many patents for any idea their
employees can think of. We used to have a lawyer come to our desks once a
month and they would try patent any idea you could come up with even off the
top of your head. Not sure how small companies can compete when larger
companies can buy up all the IP in a space without having to do any work. The
smaller companies I've worked for have to be very selective about what they
spend time and money patenting.

~~~
citilife
As someone who has multiple issued patents from large companies.. It's a
pretty complex issue. I personally think software patents should be outlawed,
as I don't know a better solution.

On the one hand, I have several patents for project(s) that took years to
develop. The processes are unique, very difficult to replicate, and should be
offered some protection (if we agree that motor designs should be protected).
The companies I have worked for would defend the IP and would constitute these
as "offensive" patents, because they would use it to actively stop upstarts.

On the other hand, I also have worked with lawyers to just patent ideas I had
off hand. These are "defensive" patents, and go into the patent arsenal,
containing hundreds to thousands of patents, to be used if someone decides to
sue. These are just "ideas" and often will only have the most basic design(s)
and testing (if at all).

Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell the difference, and more over - I don't
think it's fair (personally) to patent something that doesn't exist in reality
yet.

What's even more frightening to me personally, is that I am morally opposed to
patenting... However, when someone offers me $1k, $3k, $5k, etc. to work with
them to file a patent I'm incentivized to file. I have to be pragmatic for my
family.

For reference, I'm on or currently working through filing close to 150
patents.

For each one, I donate a portion to the EFF; for what it's worth...

~~~
rjtrickett
Has the idea of a patent tax ever been explored?

Basically, increasing the cost of filing patents incrementally to regulate
excessive patenting and encourage companies to be more selective.

~~~
beefield
I have thought of a scheme where the first couple of years of IP are free and
after that heavily progressively taxed over time ( e.g 1000 usd on third year
and doubling each year after that. Once the ip holder does not pay the tax, IP
becomes automatically public domain.

Unfortunately Berne convention has been written in a way that basically does
not allow any kind of taxation of IP in arts and literary works. Which, of
course, is amazing, mindboggling power grab by IP industry, done already in
18th century.

~~~
ascar
Art and literature and patents are a fundamentally different law construct
with different background and purpose.

Generalizing patents and copyright as IP is a fallacy and leads to wrong
conclusions.

I recommend reading this article by Richard Stallmann on this topic
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-
ipr.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html)

------
math
It upsets me more to be reminded that governments grant monopolies on not-
very-difficult-to-come-up-with ideas such as any of those mentioned in the
article.

~~~
squirrelicus
Yeah software is this funny new world where the cost of manufacture and
distribution is orders of magnitude less than the cost of invention. Patents
were intended to solve the opposite problem. Software patents are just
inexcusable

~~~
amelius
There are algorithms that, in my opinion, would deserve a patent, though.
Software can, in some cases, be more clever than e.g. mechanical inventions.
It would be unfair if one inventor could apply for a patent, while the other
could not.

~~~
QML
Should we allow for algorithms to be patented though? To reserve something so
abstract would be near equal to claiming a mathematical formula for oneself.
If IBM had patented the fast Fourier transform, where would signal processing
be?

~~~
Someone
Patents on mp3 and RSA didn’t prevent them from being used everywhere. I guess
a patent on FFT (which, by the way, was considered at the time, according to
Wikipedia) wouldn’t have stopped its adoption either.

Also, IMO, a _formula_ , which tells you _what_ to compute, is essentially
different from an _algorithm_ , which tells you _how_. FFT would be patentable
because it is non-obvious, even when given the formula for doing a Fourier
transform.

It still might be non-patentable on other grounds, such as the fact that Gauss
apparently described it in 1805
([http://www.cis.rit.edu/class/simg716/Gauss_History_FFT.pdf](http://www.cis.rit.edu/class/simg716/Gauss_History_FFT.pdf)),
two years before Fourier published his work on what now is known as Fourier
series.

~~~
janoc
Sorry, a formula and an algorithm are not at all different.

A mathematical formula is just a symbolic expression of an abstract concept,
with the _procedure_ (algorithm) how to use it being implicit (= obvious to
the person skilled in the art).

A computer algorithm can be trivially converted into purely mathematical/logic
representation ("formulas" if you want), e.g. using things like lambda
calculus. And vice-versa - an abstract mathematical problem formulation can be
converted into an algorithm (assuming the solution is known).

If you start patenting algorithms, you are patenting math.

~~~
1787
It is true that an algorithm can be converted to a formula, and a formula to
an algorithm, but it is unlikely a given useful algorithm could be generated
mechanically from a (human-written, useful) formula.

For example, you could write a formula to express the property of order in
lists, and maybe with some mechanical procedure (falling under "obvious to the
person skilled in the art") you could then generate an algorithm that sorted
lists. However, what's the time/space complexity of that algorithm? What are
the practical runtime characteristics? For industry applications the practical
runtime characteristics matter as much as anything else. That you technically
could compute something doesn't matter at all, if that computation might not
finish until relevant celestial bodies have phase changes.

I'm not saying Quicksort should be patentable, but I do think it's at least a
step and a half removed from pure math.

------
qsdevacc
Facebooks entire business revolves around collecting personal information.
Their business model is entirely inconsistent with personal privacy and
everyone needs to know that.

~~~
itronitron
The face/mask of Facebook is that they are a platform for sharing, and that FB
users 'know' what they are sharing and making public. Users mistakenly assume
that is the limit to the personal data that FB collects. I don't know why FB
felt a need to go beyond that and start stalking everyone on the internet.
They made their choice.

Point being, FB could have focused their data collection on only that
information that their user's post.

------
ve55
Stop finding excuses to stay on Facebook. Be strong and do what is right. You
can convince your friends to use other things if they are truly your friends.

~~~
lgregg
I don't really get facebook outside of being able to see _vaguely_ what is
going on with family. I call, text, and email my actual friends if we're not
in person.

~~~
sincerely
a lot of subcultures pretty much exist _through_ facebook now. i deleted about
a year before all this shit went down but had to reactivate recently because
there’s really no other way to be aware of whats going on in the electronic
music scene, especially for parties in illegal venues that cant be
traditionally advertised

~~~
wingerlang
I was searching, on and off, for a specific motorcycle model for 3-4 years
without finding one. Recently I found a small but active group dedicated to
this particular model and within 4 weeks there was a post about some for sale.

------
acobster
> Nevertheless, the mobile device continuously takes location and acceleration
> sensor readings (e.g., once every 5 minutes) and sends the location and
> acceleration data to server 112.

What is "server 112"? Is this some internet-ism I don't know about?

~~~
bfaviero
It’s a reference to a diagram/figure in the patent

~~~
userbinator
Unfortunate that they didn't have enough numbered things to use 641A...

------
zethraeus
A patent shows only that someone within the organization is supported in
thinking about how to do its thing. You can infer a commitment to that thing
based on it and/or other context, but it doesn't _show_ that.

------
zethraeus
N.B. Patents are a lagging indicator of what a company is doing. They're made
public more than a year after submission.

~~~
lettergram
That actually depends, often patents can be fast tracked (for a few grand).
This means they will be reviewed and accepted within months not years.

------
bitL
I have to give it to FB - it's impressive how does their personal information
collection and inference work. I was recently called by their recruiter -
despite me being off FB for a few years, with inactive LinkedIn profile and
keeping my current career info offline, they were perfectly informed what I am
up to. Google messaged me as well. It's pretty amazing they could figure it
out, even if I didn't really hide anything, just wasn't updating my status
anywhere for quite a while nor talking to my acquaintances that could leak it
through social engineering.

~~~
xtrapolate
Not refuting your theory, but in all probability, you (like most others in the
industry) have friends ("friends"?) that simply relay info to recruiters from
these two companies. Poaching is often done that way.

Also, at least in my case, both Google and Facebook periodically reach out,
years after our last formal interaction.

Had a recruiter working for one of my clients for a few years. They later left
the company and joined the competition. Recruiter's past "success stories" all
got contacted, not a week after.

~~~
bitL
They specifically had info only my accountant had and I wasn't disclosing it
to anyone outside closest family. They also contacted me within 10 minutes of
each other which made it even more unusual. I guess somewhere in some system
some of my info appeared and triggered both of them.

------
ameyv
This is really disturbing. I daily use and consume instagram and whatsapp. I
need to find a way to get out of these social apps. :(

~~~
wepple
When you say “find a way”, what makes it so hard to just delete Instagram?

Whatsapp is difficult, it’s the defector way to communicate for most people I
know

------
benatkin
It's all justified because "We connect people. Period."

~~~
paulie_a
"we stalk people. period"

------
jashkenas
Hey folks,

I helped out a little with this piece. Aside from being happy to answer
questions — I want to share a few bonus interesting Facebook patents that
didn't quite make the final cut:

In "Systems and methods for directing messages based on social data"
([https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180041464A1/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180041464A1/en)),
Facebook talks about creating "user influence scores" as a metric of your
reputation on the social network. It talks about how, "the user influence
score can be decreased when the sender is reported to be associated ... with
undesired content." Or can be decreased when your friends are "reported to be
associated with undesired content."

In "Multi-Factor Location Verification"
([https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170261590A1/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170261590A1/en)),
Facebook ponders how to accurately track your location when you have your
phone's GPS turned off. The phone can ping nearby RFID readers, NFC systems,
see a nearby Bluetooth device, or the MAC address of your router, or the wifi
SSID. But that's the easy stuff — what if you have your phone turned off
entirely? The patent discusses tracking your location based on your calendar
events, concert tickets, and dinner reservations: “A location determination
method may include advanced knowledge of the user's intended or estimated
location, such as a reservation for an event at a particular time (e.g.
restaurant, theater, concert…)”.

In "Identifying users of client devices for tracking user interactions..."
([https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170353564A1/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170353564A1/en)),
Facebook discusses the problem of shared computers, where different family
members may use the same web browser, and therefore the same tracking cookies.
The patent discusses how to feed the web browsing and activity data into a
"user identity matching module", which figures out which Facebook profile to
attach the activity log to based on what you're doing online. Shopping for
motorcycle parts? Log it for the husband. Dora the explorer? Probably the kid.
Works just as well when you're logged out.

If you guys have any favorite mildly disturbing personal surveillance patents
— please share! They're fun to collect.

And in related news — this piece running this weekend turned out to have
interesting timing. This week the Supreme Court ruled, somewhat tangentially,
on digital privacy, in Carpenter v. United States. The narrow majority opinion
held that your cell phone tower location data should not be available to
government search without a warrant. The five justices wrote about 24/7
location tracking: "Only the few without cell phones could escape this
tireless and absolute surveillance."

And then some of the even more interesting argumentation came in the dissents
— especially Gorsuch's.

He seems to want to develop an even stronger constitutional protection for
personal data, throwing out the current "third party doctrine", and rooting it
instead in a more expansive reading of the Fourth Amendment. He writes: "Can
the government demand a copy of all your e-mails from Google or Microsoft
without implicating your Fourth Amendment rights?" And "Just because you
entrust your data — in some cases, your modern-day papers and effects — to a
third party may not mean you lose any Fourth Amendment interest in its
contents."

I know it's wishful thinking, but I'd love to see a day when "The right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures..." covered all of the personal data hoards
that Facebook and Google have amassed.

~~~
dominotw
Do you have similar patent analysis on other social media companies like
twitter, google. Curious to see what other companies are doing wrt to user
privacy.

~~~
jashkenas
I'm afraid I don't have a link to one — but I'd certainly love to see a piece
that focuses on Google's portfolio. Even better would be a bigger, more
comprehensive project that compares Facebook's patents to Google's,
qualitatively. Both companies stand apart from the rest of the tech giants in
their possession of enough personal data to exploit these patents — it would
be fascinating to see if a trend or a significant difference could be
discovered in the types of personal surveillance they're describing.

------
dzonga
Public Company shows a commitment to making money and serving it's
shareholders. Facebook isn't broken the business model is.

~~~
white-flame
There's nothing wrong with making money within legal and ethical bounds.
Getting as close as possible to the former, or bulldozing over the latter with
no concern, will certainly draw public ire. That can lead to market changes,
as well as the possibility of legal changes.

------
laurex
To offer another perspective on defensive patents, it's worth taking a look at
the Defensive Patent Licence devised by Jason Schultz and Jennifer Urban.
[https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/facpubs/2149/](https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/facpubs/2149/)

------
chmaynard
The internet portal business is a house of cards, ripe for disruption at any
time. I predict that within five years Facebook will have morphed into a
different company. They probably don't know for sure what their new business
model will be, but cranking out lots of software patents may turn out to be
helpful.

------
zavi
You need data to build technologies of the future and continue improvement of
living standards. We (Western countries) should make it as easy as possible to
collect and share it between businesses, and embrace it culturally if we want
to stay relevant in AI-powered future.

~~~
emilsedgh
_if we want to stay relevant in AI-powered future._

I have two arguments here.

1\. The kind of data Facebook collects has nothing to do with AI, but
advertising.

2\. Even it mattered for AI, why do you think staying relevant in AI-powered
future is more important than our privacy?

~~~
windows_tips
Wouldn't Facebook try to create 'AI's that mimic their users so that they can
then predict what the 'highest value' advertisement is to show to the user at
Facebook's next possible opportunity?

------
davidhyde
My problem with patents is that they all have the same expiry. Some industries
move faster than others. A 5 year software patent would be less stifling to
innovation but would give the inventor enough of a head start to get going.

~~~
mnw21cam
Thing is, you would then get legal wrangling over the category that each
specific application should go in. The applicant would obviously want it to go
into a category that has a longer validity, and some creative rewording may
occur.

------
GraemeD
The Patent system would be fairer if it had a graded protection system. For
example, 12 months protection for a minor insight, 15 years protection for a
major breakthrough with years of documented research.

------
windows_tips
>One of them describes using forward-facing cameras to analyze your
expressions and detect whether you’re bored or surprised by what you see on
your feed.

They patented a feature of their own platform?

------
Mc_Big_G
Delete your facebook/whatsapp/instagram/whatever. You'll be much happier and,
ideally, they will die.

------
cja
Facebook's website shows a commitment to collecting personal information

------
textmode
"Facebook has said repeatedly that its patent applications should not be taken
as indications of future product plans. "Most of the technology outlined in
these patents has not been included in any of our products, and never will
be," Allen Lo, a Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel, and the
company's head of intellectual property, said in an email."

The author suggests Facebook through these filings shows a commitment to
collecting personal information. Mr. Lo's statement does not deny this
suggestion. Note also he uses the word "most". This implies that some of the
technology has been or will be used by Facebook.

Instead of addressing the issue, Lo recited a truism. (At least that is all
we're told about the email response.)

The truism is that out of _all US patent applications_ filed by _all
applicants_ for _all inventions_ , the vast majority are never embodied in
either a product nor a service. For a company with its size and budget, it is
obvious that this would apply to Facebook.

What is a US patent? It is not a "government-granted monopoly". It is not a
right to make or sell an invention. In terms of rights, it is nothing more
than the right to sue an accused infringer.

By seeking patent protection for methods Facebook will never use, Facebook
demonstrates it has an interest in either (a) being able to sue others who
might use them and/or (b) whether anyone else has that ability.

Thus, the question for Mr. Lu is why Facebook wants to be able to sue others
for patent infringement based on the methods disclosed in these applications
and/or why it cares if others have that ability.

If we are to believe that Facebook will never use the methods disclosed in the
applications, then we can also believe that Facebook would never be a target
of patent litigation based on use of the methods in these applications. As
such they would have no reason to want to keep others from having the ability
to sue.

If we are to believe Facebook is hoping to license or sell these applications
to others, then we can also believe that Facebook does not care if others use
the "creepy" methods disclosed in the applications. In that case, Facebook's
interests are misaligned with the interests of users who care about use of
methods like the ones disclosed in these applications.

If we are to believe Facebook wants patent rights as a "defensive",
retaliatory or coercive measure against some other company (e.g., Facebook
wants counterclaims if it is sued, or wants to be able to make Steve Jobs-like
threats of "thermo-nuclear war" via patent litigation) then we can also
believe that _Facebook perceives itself in competition with companies that may
practice the "creepy" methods in these applications._

The underlying issue raised by these applications and many others filed by
Facebook is the nature of its interest in collecting personal information (cf.
merely publishing information that users choose to upload or post):

Does Facebook perceive itself in competition with companies that collect
personal information and take money from advertisers? Does Facebook perceive
itself in competition with companies who would use the methods in these
application? If yes, why?

------
0x86DD_
Now they are coming up with Facebook messenger for kids... creepy stuff!

------
sidcool
Elon Musk open sourced most of Tesla's patents for a freer innovation.

------
bunkydoo
Wow, this is a new revelation. Couldn't have guessed that, what a story mark.

~~~
kodablah
Feeds a growing fervor to enable views. We can arc the anti-FB storylines and
realize these cycles of generated angst are self-perpetuating.

I always knew of FB's issues, but what this whole pitchfork-building exercise
has shown me is how the outlets people always defend for accuracy maintain a
narrative by story choice alone. In their quest for views, they've fucked up
the signal-to-noise ratio.

------
dnomad
Yet another New York Times hit piece against Facebook. It makes you wonder
what a private corporation is supposed to do. In just this year:

1) The New York Times has published an endless stream editorials calling for
Facebook to be destroyed [1], insisting Facebook is a thread to national
security [2] and declaring Facebook a threat to the republic [3].

2) These editorials are joined by "reporting" insinuating that Facebook is
working with the Chinese [4] (an obvious lie), accusing Facebook of lying to
Congress and giving "data access" to device makers (another obvious lie) and,
of course, when in doubt, it publishes pure rumour and speculation about
Facebook [5].

And now we get yet another hit piece about Facebook's "creepy" patents. The
reporter decided to pick the 7 most "creepy" patents and insist this shows
Facebook's "plans" while dutifully ignoring the hundreds of other patents
Facebook has generated. The reporter makes no effort to determine whether
other companies have similar patents since this would reveal there's
absolutely nothing special or unusual or "creepy" about such patents.

Throughout this propaganda campaign there's no mention of any conflict of
interest despite the fact that we know the NY Times and other media
corporations derive significant revenue from Facebook's platform and do not
agree with many of Facebook's policies [6].

So it makes you wonder: what is a company supposed to do when the "leading
paper" decides to continually attack them on the most flimsy terms? (Next week
in the Times: Zuckerberg's creepy new haircut!) What exactly is Facebook's
play here when its not foreign media waging the propaganda campaign?

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/facebook-fix-
repl...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/facebook-fix-replace.html)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/opinion/facebook-china-
pr...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/opinion/facebook-china-privacy-data-
security.html)

[3] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/opinion/facebook-
privacy-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/opinion/facebook-privacy-
zuckerberg-society.html)

[4] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-
devic...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-device-
partnerships-china.html)

[5] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-
alex-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex-
stamos.html)

[6] [https://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-new-york-times-
execs...](https://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-new-york-times-execs-get-
into-heated-debate-over-ad-policy/)

~~~
maym86
Facebook is a multi-billion dollar corporation with a history of obfuscating
the truth and a terrible record on privacy. With the power they have they
deserve scrutiny. I agree that selecting patents isn't a very convincing
aproach but it is another data point. Could it just be that NYT is printing a
lot of negative articles because they're are a lot of incidents involving
Facebook doing something wrong?

~~~
aylmao
> Facebook is a multi-billion dollar corporation with a history of obfuscating
> the truth and a terrible record on privacy. With the power they have they
> deserve scrutiny.

Definitely agree.

> Could it just be that NYT is printing a lot of negative articles because
> they're are a lot of incidents involving Facebook doing something wrong?

Yes probably, though I've also noticed a certain level of bias. Google and
Amazon probably have as many "creepy" patents to infer user behaviour, yet we
don't hear as much about them on this space. Hell, Google pretty much invented
the whole concept of tracking users across websites, "shadow profiles", and
personalized search/ads.

Cambride Analytica was bad and Facebook should've veto'd its API users better
from the get-go. The next obvious step after that article was a look at
Google's own leaky data practices: I've installed too many Android games which
ask for essentially full-phone access and I'm sure there's people who, much
like with CA, don't consider the implications and just hit "ok".

I'm not trying to defend Facebook here, but I do want to point out they're not
the only ones who should be getting scrutinized.

~~~
maym86
Agree all the large powerful tech companies need to be scrutinized. Given
Zucherberg had to testify at Congress recently it seems reasonable and
expected that it would result in a little more focus on them.

