
Myspace Sold User Data Too - _o_
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43bbbn/myspace-tom-viant-time-inc-facebook-cambridge-analytica
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shafyy
There's a difference between selling user data and using user data to target
ads to specific user groups.

It's not like I get an Excel file with user data if I advertise on FB. All I
can do is use FB's interface to select interests, age or an array of other
information to target my ads.

The ones selling user data are Equifax and friends.

~~~
ryanworl
Ironically, the popular media has historically been the one of the largest
sources of consumer data for ages through magazine subscriptions. They sell
their data to brokers like Axciom (and many others) who package it and
literally sell it for cash for anywhere from a few pennies per record on up
depending on what features you want. Just addresses, addresses and phone
numbers, number of cars owned, family make-up, age, etc.

Facebook is honestly quite humane in comparison. No one knows this stuff
exists except direct marketers, which is why it doesn't get any attention.

Facebook gets much larger quantities of mundane information like you clicked
on a news article, or you went on vacation to a certain place, etc. It also
has social graph information that data brokers don't typically have like "is
close friends with a woman with an upcoming birthday." That is a real ad
targeting example you can do on Facebook.

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lwansbrough
Stupid title, every free service sells user data.

~~~
ronilan
False assertion.

I once operated a free service with 10Ks of users. When I sold it I refused to
sell the user data. This dropped the value of the transaction to a fraction of
the original offer.

So, maybe _a lot of_ , but not _every_.

~~~
stochastic_monk
Bravo, good sir! The world needs more people like you. A friend asked why I
was in computer science if I thought so many tech companies were doing evil
things. My answer was that being a conscientious objector, I might be able to
make a difference. Thank you for showing it can be done.

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jaequery
Most of the free apps on the App Store or Google Play, are probably selling
your data left and right.

The little "My Digital Life" app (that just happened to exploited a bug in
Facebook's platform at the time) is probably a drop in the pond. Who knows
what other apps there are that's not even connected with Facebook that have
been selling for all these years and are probably still doing so today?

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spullara
OMG. How many times does Zuckerberg have to tell everyone they don't sell data
before this old trope isn't pulled out?

~~~
sametmax
Yes, they give it for free with the prism program.

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IshKebab
Oh my god. Facebook did not sell data to Cambridge Analytica. Can we just all
learn that please?

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lc94
whataboutism

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dna_polymerase
> In the wake of Facebook’s privacy debacle, Myspace Tom has emerged as an
> unlikely hero.

What? Why? They all sold data, they all still do. It's fucking Silicon Valleys
Business Model to sell their users' data!

What the fuck is going on, why do people behave like they are on the Internet
for the first time. We all know this. We all knew this - for years.

You've got to be completely oblivious of any facts to still think any player
in the modern web is any good or intents to do act good.

I can't wait for IPFS and Ethereum to ripe. Those two things combined will
create the truly decentralized web and all those big, data selling, companies
can fuck off.

~~~
firasd
Um... if there's a social network based on Ethereum you can just scrape all
their user data and not need an equivalent of the Facebook third-party
developer platform at all.

~~~
dna_polymerase
In an open platofrm you will always be able to abuse in some form or another.
But what will end is the platform abusing your data. And that is the point
here. If I want to sell my data (or hand it to someone, whatever) I will be
able to do this. But there won't be any central party selling my data. And
that is all we can ask for.

To be more specific, I could make my data available only to those who I
allowed to see it by including their public key in my list of authorised keys.
Therefor no scraping.

~~~
eropple
Anybody who you trust can then use My Cool Quiz App and let it read anything
they can see about _you_ , too.

Reality is not required to cooperate with coinwank.

