
Selling You on Facebook: Don't be surprised where your details pop up - iProject
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577327744009046230.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADTop
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crazygringo
Am I the only one that doesn't get all the recent hatred of Facebook here on
HN?

I think it's fair to assume that any site, anywhere, might wind up giving
information that _you have input_ into the site, to advertisers. You don't
even _have_ to input information, but just visit different pages on different
sites that use the same ad network, and they already know what kinds of pages
you visit.

Then, sometimes you get better ads shown, and sometimes they're hilariously
misinterpreted. Honestly, who cares? And if you've got something horribly
secret, then it's not the kind of thing you should be putting on Facebook
anyways, where all your friends can see it.

This isn't McCarthyism, where you're being fired from your job because you
visited the Facebook page for communism. All we're talking about is what ads
you get shown, and even if someone is peeping over your shoulder, it's not
like they know if an ad was targeted specifically to you anyways, or why. Junk
mail has been doing this stuff for decades, sending you offers based on your
credit cards, magazine subscriptions, catalog subscriptions, etc.

Seriously, can someone please explain to me any conceivable way in which this
could negatively impact me? I'm genuinely curious if I'm missing something
here.

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Zirro
<http://www.donttrack.us> (by the DuckDuckGo-team) gives a few examples.

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crazygringo
Right, so the "herpes" ad example -- I just have never seen that kind of thing
in real life. I search for 100's of things a week, including certainly plenty
of embarassing things, and have never noticed ads that seemed in any way
obviously based on those.

And as for insurance companies rejecting you or charging you more -- this just
seems like FUD. Has this _ever_ happened before? And if it did, it seems like
something for Congress to address, not a reason to stop using or hate
Facebook.

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jrnkntl
"If social norms were fences, [Helen Nissenbaum] said, "any ethical, law-
abiding person won't step over the fence." In the absence of data-usage laws
or norms [...] some tech companies feel unconstrained about using information
in new ways that can seem creepy."

And that's one of the major pain points of 'enforcing' privacy online for
users. Together with all the 'global' sets of laws that are needed and need to
be enforceable throughout the internet (the EU Data Protection[1] being one of
the steps in the right direction), it's painful to see that the legal system
can't keep up (once again[2]) with 'the free Internet'.

[1] <http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/index_en.htm>

[2] It's another side of the spectrum of enforcing laws and norms on the
Internet, users paying with their 'personal information' for 'free' services,
besides all the anti-piracy efforts of the mpaa and such.

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DiabloD3
I've never had a Facebook account (nor do I want one), but I want to ask the
Facebook users out there something: Why do any of you put up with this crap?
Whats in it for you? What does Facebook do that email, RSS subscriptions to
blogs, phone calls, talking to people face to face, et al, can't do?

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rms
It lets you keep track of above Dunbar's Number of friends.

~~~
_exec
This. Facebook is 'web scale' for friendships.

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rasur
A slightly off-topic thing, but I'm curious as to if anyone else here with a
FB account has tried to download their FB data, but never actually received
the notification email or data itself?

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wmoser
Honestly, the aspect that originally drew me to Facebook was as an online
address book that everyone updated themselves so I always had their most
recent phone, email address, etc. Unfortunately now, because of all the
privacy concerns most the time I can only send a message asking for their
phone number or begging them to call me. A lot of people don't even have email
addresses up anymore. I think the change came about around the time they let
everyone have an account.

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wmoser
Sorry that was meant to be a reply to G-Garon, fat fingers and iPhones.

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g-garron
If you happen to "really" need a Facebook account, let's say to be in contact
with your classmates, then you should consider adding only your Name and email
address to your account info. I've added not religion or political info there,
no one should care what my religion or political views are.

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VMG
I have also never felt the urge to post my status, comment on another persons
status on or was compelled to "like" something.

You can use facebook as a mostly passive medium.

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g-garron
That is the way I use it, I share nothing, but use it to keep in touch with
some friends who almost never read their emails :). Usually to organize old
friends parties. It is kind of good for that. With a private group. I would
have preferred a Posterous group or a mailing list, but my '91 school class is
not made by geeks. They use Facebook.

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thekevan
"Facebook requires apps to ask permission before accessing a user's personal
details. However, a user's friends aren't notified if information about them
is used by a friend's app."

I have apps disabled on my profile and have had them so for about 2 years. So
if my friend uses an app as described above, I would image my data is still
shared through Facebook, correct? Having apps disabled doesn't help me here?

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raganwald
They claim that having platform apps disabled prevents the data from being
shared. Of course, if you accidentally give an app permission to do anything,
anywhere, that turns apps back on including sharing your data with other apps.

I recommend checking to make sure you haven’t turned apps back on by mistake.
If your apps are turned on but if you want to make sure, here is how to
disable sharing your personal data with the apps your friends use:

[http://raganwald.posterous.com/when-you-share-personal-
data-...](http://raganwald.posterous.com/when-you-share-personal-data-with-
facebook-fr)

~~~
thekevan
Thanks for that blog post. That answers the question.

Over the past 2 years I have had apps turned off. A few days ago I had signed
up for Instagram. On my Android phone, I clicked "share with Facebook" but did
not complete the sign-up as I did not want to accidentally enable apps.
Yesterday I signed in to FB and saw app requests. FB had turned the app
platform back on without any sort of "are you sure you want to change this
setting" prompt. I have turned apps back off.

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suprgeek
In today's hyper-connected world always remember the maxim "If you are not
paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold."

Always and everytyime.

In fact to make it a bit stronger even when you are paying for an
App/Service/Whatever expect your personal information to be a part of the
deal.

