

Facebook Acquires Beluga - hornokplease
http://belugapods.com/fb

======
eob
I know many reports claim that many iPhone apps "steal" your private
information. Beluga is the first iPhone app I've ever used where I've actually
seen it happen before my eyes.

I signed up for Beluga while on a ski trip with a bunch of friends. I used it
for the weekend -- it worked pretty well -- and then forgot about it.

A few weeks later, I started getting notifications on my phone: "Firstname
Lastname is now on Beluga". The only problem? I had no idea who Firstname
Lastname was. But I had a suspicion. See, I had synced my iPhone contact list
with my Google Account, so unfortunately my iPhone has just about anyone who
has ever emailed me inside it's address book.

I checked the address book and, sure enough, the person Beluga was notifying
me about was in there.

So here's the thing: iPhone notifications are push, not pull. Which means a
Beluga server pushed this notification to me. Which means the Beluga server
knew this person was in my address book. Which means the Beluga app uploaded
my address book to their servers.

I know that in this day and age, practices like this are becoming commonplace,
but I think downloading someone's address book without asking permission is
wrong, even if it is contractually allowed by Apple's TOS and the API.

~~~
BarkMore
Beluga uploads a SHA-1 hash of the email addresses.
[http://community.belugapods.com/beluga/topics/privacy_concer...](http://community.belugapods.com/beluga/topics/privacy_concern_with_friends_using_beluga)

~~~
saurik
That is only at all comforting if they first salt the data so it would not be
comparable to information gathered by other services.

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tuhin
Correct me if I am wrong, but while the talent acquisition makes sense because
the execution from the Beluga team has been brilliant, but why the technology?
I mean are not they using Twilio's API for the most part of the service?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Zuck has stated several times that Facebook only acquires for talent. So if
you love your product, don't sell it to Facebook :)

~~~
finiteloop
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2277570>

~~~
nl
I suspect the author of this post may be a little better informed about
Facebook's intentions than most other HN posters.

~~~
j2d2j2d2
Finiteloop = Bret Taylor, CTO of Facebook

~~~
nl
hence _a little better informed about Facebook's intentions_ :)

~~~
j2d2j2d2
I was clarifying since you didn't say so explicitly. Best to be clear.

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zmitri
Reminds me of <http://frid.ge/> which is also a nice, simple, and good looking
product.

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gaborcselle
Congrats Lucy, Ben, and Jon!

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justin
Beluga is an amazing app. I hope it's functionality gets left intact or
someone clones it immediately :)

~~~
finiteloop
We bought Beluga because we love it, too. We bought it because we love the
functionality _and_ the team.

So I wouldn't stress too much :)

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oldstrangers
Both Google and Facebook are on the hunt it seems. Google just buys Zynamics,
Facebook buys Beluga.

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graceyang
Congrats to the main team. I started using beluga this weekend for a ski trip
and was impressed with it's speed and ease of use!

------
JakeSc
Congratulations, Beluga team! Please keep us posted on how things go with
Facebook.

