
Did You Really Agree to That? The Evolution of Facebook’s Privacy Policy - kawera
http://techscience.org/a/2015081102/
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plorg
I don't know if either of these contribute to an understanding of Facebook's
view of privacy, but I recently came across two pages which surprised me in
some way.

The first[1] is a user's search history, which allows a user to see what terms
they entered into the search box, going back apparently to nearly the
beginning of the website (I think I saw records back to 2005).

The second[2] is a list of advertising topics or preferences. These, I
believe, are generated automatically from pages you have "Liked" in the past.
For instance, I found a listing for an obscure city in Japan that had the same
name as a radio station I had subscribed to.

In both cases I guess it's some form of "benevolence" for them to freely admit
they had this data and to allow you to edit it. At the same time, the second
page in particular struck me as disturbing because there are at least 3
different settings which already ask that my interests and preferences not be
used for advertising purposes. I had specifically set those options against
targeting. Yet, here they are, gathering that information anyways.

[1][https://www.facebook.com/me/allactivity](https://www.facebook.com/me/allactivity)

[2][https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/edit/](https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/edit/)

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plorg
[1] should be
[https://www.facebook.com/me/allactivity?log_filter=search](https://www.facebook.com/me/allactivity?log_filter=search)
\- I noticed only after I missed the edit cutoff.

~~~
duidui
[https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?sk=allactivity&log_filt...](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?sk=allactivity&log_filter=search)

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Maarten88
I think changing a privacy policy without destroying data received under an
older policy is illegal in the Netherlands. As it should.

The largest supermarket chain (AH) here implemented a new loyalty program with
personalized promotions last year, for which they needed changes in their
privacy policy. They had to delete all their customer data and start
completely new - re-registration of customers, giving out new passes and
everything.

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gruez
But will that be enforced? I doubt it will.

~~~
jacquesm
NL is interesting that way, we have a privacy watchdog that actually has teeth
and that will go after the big guys first. Starting 1/1/2016 there is
mandatory reporting requirement in case of any data leaks involving private
information of customers for instance. The CBP is doing its job just fine, if
only the rest of the government would be that up-to-date with its policies.

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harryf
The "genius" of Zuckerberg is simple.

Back in 2005, while the rest of us were building an idealistic Internet full
of democratic freedoms and such, Zuckerberg's breakthrough was realising that
when the unwashed masses finally quit TV and get online, you need to be ready
to feed them a high frequency mix of narcism, LOLs, peer-pressure and
distraction and you'd have them hooked.

Once hooked, you can do _anything_ you want with their privacy. Anything. Sure
minorities may complain about point 8.7 in the T&C but the majority just want
that "Agree to Terms" dialog to get out of their face so they can get back to
their habit.

~~~
pdkl95
> the majority just want that "Agree to Terms" dialog to get out of their face

"Dumb fucks" -Zuckerberg

( [http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-
ims...](http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-
help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5) )

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macawfish
Recently, Facebook started showing a white overlay banner that says "Get
updates from ____ on Facebook. Log in or sign up for Facebook today." which
forces people to sign up or log in to facebook in order to access pages. As
you scroll down the page, the banner covers the entire window, preventing you
from seeing the contents of the page altogether.

Many organizations and groups use Facebook pages to share information with the
general public. Some only have Facebook pages.

Well I don't have Facebook, because it was habit forming and otherwise
excruciating. Quitting has been one of the best things that has happened to
me. But I still visit band pages and organization pages from time to time in
order to get basic information about events, etc.

So I find this coercive tactic of forcing me to sign up for Facebook in order
to access content meant for me to see to be divisive, insidious and overall
obnoxious.

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bsbechtel
Can you click hide element to show what's underneath?

~~~
JoshMnem
You can write a bookmarklet to get rid of it. Or in Firefox: right-click,
press q, and then delete the overlay with the delete key.

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eljayuu
Worth checking out Aral Balkan's RSA video 'Free is a lie'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldhHkVjLe7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldhHkVjLe7A)

~~~
pdkl95
[https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...](https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#balkan)

I recommend Balkan's more recent version of that talk, "You Are The Product".
In particular, he has a much more in-depth analysis of the business model and
startup culture ("digital imperialism").

(the talks by DJB and Appelbaum on that page are also very good)

edit:

look at all the downvotes. Does it make the cognitive dissonance go away?

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eggie
> look at all the downvotes. Does it make the cognitive dissonance go away?

There are some folks on here who don't like hearing this kind of stuff but
can't (or can't be bothered to) articulate why.

Is the idea that your comment is off topic?

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lamby
Can someone explain why people put so much weight into written Privacy
Policies?

This isn't a comment about privacy itself—which I am totally "on board"
with—and the documents obviously have some importance or use, but to read just
so much into the minutiae of them, collecting them centrally or even refuse to
trial a service because they simply copy-pasted from another service that had
some awkward wording seems a little bizarre to me.

This, however, might be just might be my British mindset (ie. no written
consititution!) versus a US one..

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d4rti
hence the name of this dark pattern : [http://darkpatterns.org/privacy-
zuckering/](http://darkpatterns.org/privacy-zuckering/)

