
Facebook has asked U.S. banks to share financial information about customers - tysone
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-banks-give-us-your-data-well-give-you-our-users-1533564049
======
aero142
_Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or
share it with third parties._

 _“We don’t use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads,”
said spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana. “We also don’t have special relationships,
partnerships, or contracts with banks or credit-card companies to use their
customers’ purchase data for ads.”_

How do journalists expect me to interpret this? The first sentence says
Facebook made a promise, and the second paragraph reads like a supporting
quote. The quote doesn't make the promise claimed in the first paragraph.
Should I assume that a Facebook representative made the promise, but the
actual quote got cut. Or should I assume that three different authors can't
critically read a sentence to tell that the quote only makes statements about
current practices? Why do we accept articles from major outlets without
publishing the full text of the interview with Facebook?

~~~
pferde
"We're not doing X for purpose Y!" (translation: "We're doing X not for
purpose Y, we do X for other purposes. Luckily, nobody thought to ask us about
those, and we certainly won't mention those purposes ourselves, heh, heh,
heh.")

Technically, telling the truth, in a weasely way.

~~~
florabuzzword
Freedom of the press as commonly understood in the US is a misnomer. Today we
are most limited by access-based journalism. Journalist careers generally
depend more on access than anything else. As such, their subjects have
tremendous power if wielded smartly. PR departments are tasked with wielding
this most efficiently.

By being vague in the pretense of that power-wielding landed this subject the
benefit of the journalist doing the last mile dirty work of being specific.
The hope is that this will buy her another interview, and another interview,
and so on. They (the journalist) may have another plan in mind, but their
power to execute it is limited by their professional mobility and utility to
the subject.

~~~
bogomipz
>"Freedom of the press as commonly understood in the US is a misnomer.

No "freedom of the press" in the US is commonly understood to mean that the
press is free to publish any opinions they wish without being subject
government censorship. It is codified in the First Amendment with:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press"

"Freedom of the press" has absolutely zero to do with freedom of access to
subjects the press might be reporting on. And it certainly has nothing to do
with PR flaks at powerful companies. These are not even a common
misconceptions either. So no "Freedom of the press" is not a "misnomer" at
all.

~~~
florabuzzword
I think my elaboration would have been sufficient for you to realize there is
no disagreement here.

My point is just that a free press, as _commonly understood_ and as in the
constitution, is not free. Americans are quick to get upset when legal
regulations are placed on press freedoms but slow to recognize the less
obvious.

I’m not interested in discussing any further. You appear to just be looking
for a disagreement. Good luck.

~~~
bogomipz
>"My point is just that a free press, as commonly understood and as in the
constitution,"

And your point is patently untrue. Freedom of the Press is not "commonly
understood" in that incorrect way in the US.

Honestly it sounded like you yourself didn't understand the meaning of the
phrase "Freedom of the Press." You even called it a "misnomer." Accusing
people of "looking for a disagreement" simply because they corrected you seems
kind of lame and uncalled for.

~~~
lorenzorhoades
the OP's post, and your post are not mutually exclusive. I think you both
point out inherent flaws in the term "freedom of press" as it is currently
understood in society. His point is that they are incentivied not burn bridges
with large corps, and your point is they can say whatever the f __* they want
with zero governmental oversight.

------
koolba
> The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed
> financial information about their customers, including card transactions and
> checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to
> users.

s/offer new services to users/increase revenue per user/

Once you've reached the levels of market saturation that Facebook has the only
way to grow is value _per-user_ , specifically in 1st world countries where
there's actual value to be had.

> One large U.S. bank pulled away from talks due to privacy concerns, some of
> the people said.

Good for them. I wish I knew which one.

> Banks face pressure to build relationships with big online platforms, which
> reach billions of users and drive a growing share of commerce. They also are
> trying to reach more users digitally. Many struggle to gain traction in
> mobile payments.

That's an industry problem, not an individual bank problem. Also, credit cards
are already _very_ convenient and near universally accepted. It's hard to
compete with that. Only the uninformed would use a different payment
technologies with less convenience and weaker chargeback/fraud guarantees.

> Bank executives are worried about the breadth of information being sought,
> even if it means not being available on certain platforms that their
> customers use. It is unclear whether bank customers would need to opt-in to
> the proposed Facebook services or what other privacy protections might be
> offered.

It's unclear to me what segment of bank customers would knowingly agree to
anything remotely close to this.

~~~
joering2
> Good for them. I wish I knew which one.

Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo.

> It's unclear to me what segment of bank customers would knowingly agree to
> anything remotely close to this.

Customers would not agree much, correct. However since credit cards are not
your money, you are limited in the ways to tell the bank how and what to share
or not to share with other players on the market, since its bank's money you
operated with, and bank's goal is to make as much money off of lending it to
you as possible. (of course I don't like; jsut so you know before you
downvote)

This is in fact even right in your face. Any new card (or renewal you got in
mail) has a few pages attached to it, called something like "what do we do
with your information and how can you stop us", where it clearly draws a
matrix table with YES/NO of what information they share, with whom, and in
which example you can change their default behavior (hint: not always)

~~~
bitmapbrother
>Don't ask me how I know, don't believe me, but its Wells Fargo.

I'd be surprised if it wasn't. Wells Fargo is still asking for forgiveness in
their Jon Hamm narrated _Earning Back Your Trust_ [0] commercial. It would be
incredibly stupid of them to engage in another scheme to take advantage of
their customers _at this time_.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrivHxCeeY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrivHxCeeY)

~~~
vl
Funny enough I had no idea that Wells Fargo was mixed up in any scandal before
I saw these ads. Even then I didn't know what scandal was about, and finally
this comment prompted me to look it up. :)

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
US media has more important issues to cover than major banking scandals.

~~~
mehrdadn
Huh? The Wells Fargo stuff was all over the news.

------
mwexler
This article has many, many problems, and misrepresents what's actually being
proposed. No data is shared in either way without clear consumer opt in. No
bank is randomly giving data to Facebook. Facebook is not buying data from the
banks.

The totally misconstrued experience the article appears to be about is
primarily for messenger chatbot approaches that are already in use for paypal
and a few banks (BMO, Wells Fargo to name two) across the world. The user has
to volunteer to start the chatbot in FB messenger, then go through a myriad of
permission screens (including an oAuth) to give permission to the chatbot to
see some transactions and answer a few other basic account questions ("How
much do I spend on groceries?" "When is my payment due?"). Privacy policies
for existing chatbots describe all data usage. Users can easily revoke their
permissions and remove the chatbot.

This is the same level of data you've given to various PFM apps like Clarity
or Mint. And if you haven't, cool, you won't want to do this with Facebook
either, no problem. It's with clear and conspicuous permissions. Facebook has
publicly and clearly said that they won't use the data to target ads, and they
would be sued by everyone if they turned out to have lied about something as
important as credit card or bank data. Not to say they won't get caught a year
from now abusing the data, nor can anyone say that banks won't abuse any data
they get from FB... but if you believe this, don't use the chatbot and they
won't see your bank data nor let the bank see your FB data.

Facebook has done and facilitated some dreadful things, but letting folks
access their banking data with permission via chat is the US catching up to
what WeChat already has: millions of people accessing their banking via chat.

~~~
briandear
The problem with Facebook chat access to banking is Facebook. I don’t want
Facebook to become just like WeChat where you pretty much have to have WeChat
to engage in many forms of commerce in China. I want less Facebook
pervasivness — not more of it. iMessage for Businesses is far better from a
privacy standpoint as well as usability. Facebook apps on iPhone are notorious
battery hogs not to mention have a history of very sketchy practices. Facebook
lost my trust long ago. The only way I’d use Facebook again is if Tim Cook ran
it. In the meantime, I can simply open the Chase app and see my balance in
literally one-tap (assuming FaceID is turned on.) Much faster than typing a
Messenger message. I don’t want Facebook having access to my bank balances
either.

~~~
sonnyblarney
That's fine, you don't have to use the feature.

The point is that the issue is being misrepresented, not how popular or not FB
is.

If you don't trust them, don't use it.

Also Tim Cook is doing the same thing FB ever did, it's just that Apple has
the advantage of making $$$ by selling hardware, not personal information.
They are in the enviable position of not primarily selling ads.

~~~
DesiLurker
that may be true now but I think its fair to say that the fear is it will lead
to banking data being sucked into the FB ecosystem followed by any number of
scary scenarios.

if your argument is 'oh you dont have to use it', that doesn't works either
because they can offer you a slight service/rate discount depending upon the
desperateness of you situation. remember FB already has access to a lot of
your data through FB/whatsapp/insta & pretty pervasive tracking everywhere.
they are rapidly achieving monopoly status in many communication forms so some
panic is warranted when they go after your banking or healthcare data.

let me paint a picture not too implausible for you. you walk into a hospital,
as it stands today there is no way you can find out the costs of services you
are gonna consume without having to go through the complicated dance of
billing/negotiation/copays etc. Now say there is a tie-up between
FB/Banks/Insurance companies (and hospitals because why the heck not). they
can track you, find exactly how much money you have & what your cash flow
looks like. you have to be incredibly naive to think they will not use this
information to create some kind of 'adaptive pricing' to squeeze every last
penny out of you before they let you go. now let take this a step further, how
about FB turning into a kind of payday lender for your unpaid hospital bills?
All you need is one in-elastically priced service to monetize the shit out of
that.

this is just one example that took me 2 minutes to think, it can get WAY
worse!

the bigger issue that (IMO) bothers people deeply but they are often dont
articulate is tech used to be about building bridges but now tech is basically
trying to turn everything into a toll-booth.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"ou have to be incredibly naive to think they will not use this information to
create some kind of 'adaptive pricing' to squeeze every last penny out of you
before they let you go."

No, you have to be highly conspiratorial to wrap up hospitals, Facebook, the
banking system all working together to concoct an illegal, real-time price
discrimination scenario.

What you described is not plausible, moreover, if you don't want your finances
integrated into your social feed ... then don't integrate. I'll imagine that
most won't.

~~~
DesiLurker
"No, you have to be highly conspiratorial to wrap up hospitals, Facebook, the
banking system all working together to concoct an illegal, real-time price
discrimination scenario."

If you go read the comments on the original WSJ story you'll notice a pattern,
not a single comment echoing your sentiments, in fact, most of them fear
almost exactly what I described. so basically the whole world has become
conspiratorial.

Given the casualness of your response to something so serious, it makes me
think you are a Fb shill or somebody who has invested a lot in FB stock. BTW
since the announcement FB stock is up 5pc+, that makes me think market is
pricing in such predatory scenarios.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Yes, populism is like that - people are conspiratorial and easy to rile up by
the press who are always looking to spook us a little bit.

To the point wherein if someone doesn't buy into their conspiracy, they
immediately call others 'naive' and then claim they must be 'paid secret
plants' by said organization.

The scenario you described is not going to happen, and analysts are not
remotely 'pricing it in'. They're not even thinking about that.

They are however thinking that if FB gets into 'current account banking' for
folks ... then that could be a very popular thing.

You may be surprised to find that most product managers and analysts are
surprisingly normal people.

------
atonse
This is so nutty, that all our private matters are just being bartered about
without our explicit permission. All because we don't have any good regulation
in the US regarding data sharing.

This is not the same as Plaid and Mint, where we explicitly give those
services access to our accounts in exchange for direct benefits to us.

~~~
gt_
I wonder what the average American citizen could do that would help to get
such legislation passed. Any ideas?

~~~
black6
We can start by voting against every incumbent on the ballot this fall.
Congress continues to act against the public good, except for a few (mostly)
Democrats, and they all deserve to be fired.

Take it a step farther and vote against anyone with a (D) or (R) next to their
name on the ballot.

~~~
auntienomen
This will not work. You can not expect to achieve your ends by acting in
random fashion. You're going to actually have to do the hard work of figuring
out who's good on this issue and who's not.

~~~
logfromblammo
Everyone needs to run for office and vote for themselves. Failing that, find
out who is running that most faithfully represents your interests, and vote
for them.

The current federal government is so far out of step with the populace that a
blanket anti-incumbent rule doesn't seem all that bad. The only real question
is whether to vote against them in the general election, or just the
primaries.

There is a very real possibility that someone else on the ballot is actually
_worse_ than the incumbent, which barely seems possible, yet here we are.

------
dvtrn
_Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or
share it with third parties._

Why on Earth would/should anyone believe this after Cambridge Analytica?

~~~
PunchTornado
They will use the data for ads.

Then in a few years when we discover it, they'll say they're sorry and they're
trying to do better.

Facebook is changing.

~~~
jonathankoren
Probably not directly, but I can't imagine what purpose this would be except
to sell ads. That's what Facebook's business is all about.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to run some sort of regression of
behavior against bank balance and debt load. So sure, they're not using your
bank account for ads, just a proxy of your bank account for ads.

Finding proxies for income is decades old (zip code and magazine subscriptions
being the classic example), but I'm not aware of anyone doing at this scale
and with direct input from banks as opposed to volunteered information.

~~~
anticensor
To launch a paid subscription version of Facebook with loyalty discounts?

 _Get in Facebook, get your LinkedIn subscription 50% off for coming 20
years!_ (this is made up)

Disclaimer: Not a Facebook employee.

------
motohagiography
Reminds me of that line from the show Narcos that translates to, "Silver, or
lead."

What is a retail bank but some product ledgers and user identities? Banks
understand that they are rapidly being reduced to artifacts of regulation. The
ones I have spoken to have a primary mandate to "preserve the business model."

The identity information FB has is often more reliable and valuable than the
documents governments provide. Perhaps to coin a phrase, what FB and other
social platforms have is "collateralized identity," where your relationships
and personal behavior data are the collateral on the assertion of identity.
The documented one relatively is just a "registered identity."

Difference is the amount of friction, authentication, and recourse you have to
each of them. A registered identity is mainly for legal recourse (tax, travel,
and law enforcement.) What FB has might lack a bit of recourse, but it has
anti-gravity frictionlessness, and a high degree of authentication.

The point at which an institution becomes indifferent to the level of recourse
in the identity and switches to one with less friction, more data, and more
authentication - looks pretty similar. In fact, the ones who demand registered
identity are at a structural disadvantage to orgs who provide services using
collatoralized identity.

There is very little to keep FB from becoming a global bank, and current banks
will have the option to participate, or compete against the ones who do. It's
strategic in so many ways. I don't think this is a normal business
arrangement. It may more resemble offering terms on which FB will accept the
banks' surrender.

~~~
mmanfrin

      Reminds me of that line from the show Narcos that translates 
      to, "Silver, or lead."
    

In case someone misses this meaning, silver or lead refers to either accepting
a bribe (silver, money) or taking a bullet (lead).

~~~
smnrchrds
In French, the word for money is the same as the word for silver ( _argent_ ).
Is it the same in Spanish by any chance?

~~~
pier25
Depends on the country. The regular word is "dinero". In Spain it's not common
to use "plata" (silver) for money, but in Argentina it's what everyone uses.
In Mexico they use "lana" (wool).

~~~
smnrchrds
What about Colombia?

~~~
pier25
No idea...

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
swalsh
Perhaps Facebook should also scoop up my medical records, so drug companies
can improve the way they advertise to me. I'm sure all those posts about my
beer reviews will help my doctor diagnosis my chronic gout. Seems like a
2-sided deal.

/sarcasm

~~~
Spooky23
They already do.

My wife had a very early ruptured ectopic pregnancy (which she wasn't aware
of), which nearly killed her. On the week that the baby would have been born,
Enfamil launched an acquisition campaign targeted at expectant mothers that
month, kicked off by a Fedex package containing bottled/powered formula (worth
about $60) and including Facebook campaign targeting new mothers.

This was very upsetting to us, so I dug in, found out from the company where
they obtained out information, and obtained the list. I spoke to a couple of
physician and nurse friends who are pretty confident that it was a combination
of the ER admission, an imaging claim, and a drug that was prescribed and
filled in the hospital that made it highly likely to an observer that she was
pregnant -- but didn't provide enough detail to determine that she left the
hospital not pregnant.

It turns out that information regarding hospital admission, insurance claims
and prescription fulfillment is available and slurped up by various parties,
who are able to de-anonymize it. It contained alot of information, including
accurate salary history, cars we owned, approximate credit score, where we
bought baby stuff for our previous child, etc.

I make it a point to share this whenever appropriate, as it was a very painful
violation of our privacy, and really threw me for a loop, as I couldn't fathom
that our medical providers were selling our data to help pitch diapers and
formula. Facebook and many other companies either has access to this
information by buying lists, or can extrapolate by looking at advertiser
patterns.

~~~
froindt
While there are multiple steps and items that can be combined together in your
example, it does reinforce why I make sure to use cash for some transactions.
I really don't want my ad targeting profile to change to "likely has children"
when I buy things for my nieces and nephews.

A few years back there was the case where Target was using mailed ads specific
to the profile they'd built for the recipient, and a man went in angry about
the pregnancy stuff being advertised to his daughter. He went into the store
outraged. Turns out, she actually was pregnant and hadn't yet told her father.

Ever since then, I've been more conscious of my purchasing patterns. I'm sure
there are still technological advancements to track cash transactions, but it
at least makes it more difficult.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
targ...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-
figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#3aa98fe26668)

~~~
Varcht
If your photo has been associated with an other than cash transaction, pretty
much game over. You will have to up your game and put on zebra makeup when out
making cash purchases

~~~
froindt
I'll consider dressing in drag, bringing along masks, or buying a large number
of Halloween costumes. Surely if enough people went to the store with a Donald
Trump parody mask on they couldn't trace us all!

...though the anonymous mask would work just as well.

~~~
Varcht
Not sure if you are shooting the messenger or riffing but start here [1]

[1] [https://www.facefirst.com/](https://www.facefirst.com/)

------
greggarious
Any bank that gave my information to Facebook without my explicit, opt-in
consent would immediately lose me as a customer.

(Heck, I might switch just for asking.)

Luckily I bank with a credit union (not for profit) which does not constantly
try to monetize me.

------
alex_young
This spring, Facebook committed to ending their third party merchant data
integration with advertisers.[0]

Now they are directly partnering with the banks to gather this data and more,
with the stated purpose of offering products based on this data.

Why is it OK for Facebook to use this data to sell things directly, but not
when they partner with external advertisers? Why should the public trust
Facebook with this highly sensitive data?

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2018/03/29...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2018/03/29/facebook-longtime-friend-of-data-brokers-becomes-their-
stiffest-competition/?utm_term=.885d732488d3)

~~~
FireBeyond
> Why is it OK for Facebook to use this data to sell things directly, but not
> when they partner with external advertisers? Why should the public trust
> Facebook with this highly sensitive data?

It's, in theory, vaguely better. When partnering, they have a contract with
the external party, and not you. So there's nothing stopping their partners
selling it to whomever.

That being said, Facebook is already on 'thin ice' with me. But it doesn't
seem to deter them too much, other than feel good ads about how Facebook loves
us all.

------
walterbell
Good way to trigger a bank data run, where customers remove their money & data
en-masse from the bank that leaks their info to Facebook.

~~~
vorpalhex
I'm going to say something terrifying, and it should cause you terror indeed:
Most people don't shop banks.

Ask random coworkers why they use the bank they do - "Well, that's what my
parents used" or "that's what was convenient" is the usual reply.

Anytime I ask people if they pay fees for regular banking, they look at me
like I'm a crazy person - "of course I pay fees all the time, but I don't pay
very much..." Most banks are terrible and treat you terribly unless you keep
enough money with them to get the special treatment.

~~~
nightski
I think even more terrifying is that most people might need to "shop" banks. I
say that because in reality for your standard checking bank fees are non-
existent if you have over $1000 in the account even at the worst of banks
(some much less).

For savings accounts the value of shopping becomes more apparent. But if you
are getting hit by bank fees then savings account APY is really not a primary
concern.

~~~
CompelTechnic
Yeah the difference you see between the banks that actually give good rates
and not is amazing.

Ally is offering 1.80% on savings right now. Wells fargo is offering at most
0.15%.

Wells Fargo has obviously done the math and realized that their customers
simply do not care to switch accounts even though the interest they offer is
abyssmal. Pretty weird stuff. As rates rise slowly it will be interesting to
see whether the frogs finally get hot enough to jump out of the pan and
abandon wells fargo, forcing them to raise rates.

[https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/consumer-account-
rate...](https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/consumer-account-rates/)
[https://www.ally.com/bank/view-rates/](https://www.ally.com/bank/view-rates/)

~~~
nightski
Or there are people like me who hold their business & personal accounts at
wells fargo, but have savings accounts at banks such as ally & citizen's
access. You don't have to go all in on a single bank.

------
ejlangev
If you believe that a company whose whole purpose is to use data on you to
sell ads won't use data on you that it collects to sell ads then I have a
bridge to sell you.

Funny that people complained so much about GDPR being bad for business and
then get upset when things like this happen. It's almost like the two are
related or something...

~~~
mehrdadn
> If you believe that a company whose whole purpose is to use data on you to
> sell ads won't use data on you that it collects to sell ads then I have a
> bridge to sell you.

On _this_ particular case I would probably agree with you, but I'm not sure
it's true in general. From what I understand, for example, Facebook doesn't
use your messages for ads. It seems unlikely but not 100% implausible that it
could be the same here.

~~~
brisance
Depends on what you mean by "ads". I stopped using FB since April but still
use WhatsApp because my contacts use it. In the last 2 weeks, I've been
getting email spam notifications to check what these WhatsApp contacts are
doing on FB. i.e. FB has been sending me notifications about people who are
both on FB and on WhatsApp, and only those with whom I message on WhatsApp on
a regular basis. The likelihood of this being entirely coincidental is
probably close to 0.

~~~
catdog
They may not use the content of the message but all its metadata which may
even be more valuable, alone because it's easier to process automatically.

------
imgabe
If Facebook could give the banks sufficient reason to actually develop an api
for exporting data in a granular way, that would be a good thing.

I don't like entering my bank password in mint just for it to scrape the
account balance. There should be a separate read-only service with a token
that can send that information to services I want to have it. Coinbase seems
to manage to do this pretty well.

~~~
lozaning
WF can go build a bridge and then jump off it, but they do at least have a
thing where you can create an additional read only log in.

------
imh
How is it legal for the banks to share this? I'm confused.

~~~
jsoc815
The likely argument would be that within the TOS or elsewhere there is (broad)
language granting them the ability to do so. Of course, because users
dutifully accept/sign the documentation placed in front of them, such
practices are legal, at least until users 1) strike such language from the
contracts before consummating the relationship(s); or 2) successfully
challenge such practices in court. However, users have most likely also agreed
to settle their disputes in arbitration, thus waiving their right(s) to sue
(in court). So, really the should be reverting to option 1 if they are going
to "use" such services.

~~~
inetknght
Please tell me how to strike such language from any electronically-presented
contract whatsoever.

------
394549
Paywall bypass: [http://archive.is/uTZHO](http://archive.is/uTZHO)

------
ladyexplainalot
Facebook has to stay on top of competitors like WhatsApp and Instagram, which
they ended up buying, and now they’re worried about competing with services
like Venmo. They have to or they’ll lose marketshare. Although the market
mechanism usually creates the right incentives for companies to act in their
customers’ interest this could be a new type of market failure. Imposing a
cost on customers that wasn’t agreed upon by reducing the cost of surveillance
for hackers and governments. The "cost" is lower because the information is
already collected and just needs to be obtained.

So how can we fix that? Putting the data in the hands of government, where
it’s probably more likely to be stolen? I assume that facebook has better
cyber security than any government agency and a better incentive to keep their
customers’ data secure. Or maybe breaking facebook up into multiple companies
in an anti-trust litigation that will take a decade to settle?

I might end up sounding like a blockchain proponent here. To be honest I think
that most blockchain applications are scams or an overly complicated solution
where an old fashioned data base would be totally sufficient. I actually think
that blockchain technology has a very big draw back, because ownership is an
important part of markets and creating the right incentives for companies. I’m
very convinced that the majority of people who are working on some blockchain
project don’t have a clue about what they’re talking about. I can’t claim to
really understand blockchain in every detail either. My credentials are that I
studied undergrad economics at Columbia and helped found a bitcoin exchange
software company in 2013 and worked there until last year.

So from an economics point of view, my guess is that blockchain, despite the
drawback of eliminating ownership, could be a solution to this specific type
of market failure. Here's a video that explores the trade off between
ownership and censorship resistance in a bit more detail:
[https://youtu.be/pHOYORGZrps](https://youtu.be/pHOYORGZrps)

------
rusk
Perhaps relevant [0] another looney EU initiative /s

“Net neutrality” for the banking sector. [0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive)

------
cmsonger
IMO a clarion call to do one of two things: Either stop using Facebook. Or
start pushing politically.

We either need people to have either greater control over the data companies
have retain and use (Europe's approach). Restrictions on what that data can be
used for and the ways in which companies and people may treat you differently
due to that data.

------
raincom
Once banks share the info with FB, expect more prosecutions by "parallel
construction" using FinCEN databases, etc.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Metadata about who talks to who when, along with when cash is withdrawn, can
likely pinpoint drug dealers. It likely isn't even that hard - a dumb
algorithm of something like "rank people by how often their friends withdraw
more than $100 of cash within a day of talking to them, divided by how often
their friends withdraw more than $100 of cash" would hit a good number of
them.

~~~
raincom
Right now, they are catching medium level drug dealers, prostitution rings,
massage parlors, etc using SAR reports filed by banks. Basically, when someone
deposits $4000 cash every month for a couple of years; expect him to get
busted.

Once the guy gets busted, he must be thinking about how he got caught. It is
banks' active spying: under regulation, banks have become active spies. It is
a new way of spying: force private entities to comply for suspicious activity,
with a huge discretion given to regulatory bodies on the scope of what the
word 'suspicious' entails.

------
bogomipz
>"“We don’t use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads,”
said spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana."

This sounds to be like typical FB weasel-wording. "We don't" as in "we don't
currently"? Which is not the same as "We won't." But even if this statement
lacked ambiguity does anybody believe anything FB says at this point?

We already know that FB purchases "offline" third-party data from data
brokers[1], so why else would an advertising company buy even more data from
if not to make more money from advertising?

[1] [https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-
user...](https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-
everything-it-really-knows-about-them)

------
DINKDINK
Now politicians will be able tug at the precise, dollar amount your heart
needs to get you to vote for them.

------
throw2016
Facebook has also tried to get its hands on hospital data [1]. Add this to
that and these are clearly the actions of a bad actor.

Its difficult to believe there are groups of people working on these kind of
programs who do not see anything wrong.

At this point shaming will not work, people know what they are doing and can't
claim ignorance. Perhaps there must be a wider acknowledgement of the ethical
vacuum in technology, and we do not deserve the public's trust and are
actively building the very dystopia some of us postured so heavily about.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/facebook-
building-8-explored...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/facebook-
building-8-explored-data-sharing-agreement-with-hospitals.html)

------
AdamM12
"Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or
share it with third parties."

Feel like this only pertains to time of publishing. They will just wait a
month or two until everyone forgets and do it anyway.

------
oh-kumudo
Who gives FB the right to even ask for such information in the first place? So
they don't see any legal challenges could arise from such request? Seems
ridiculous to me.

~~~
walshemj
And its not like FB arn't in trouble all around the world. Mark doesn't need
some idiot manager in the company pinning please kick me sign on his back.

I where him id start firing one or two board members

------
qaz_plm
Another paywall bypass as I'm having issues with the archive.is service...

[https://outline.com/waMHEq](https://outline.com/waMHEq)

------
makecheck
I think Facebook has basically reached the “do whatever we can imagine and
occasionally apologize if it goes too far” phase.

When software can implement ideas in a short period of time, we need laws that
can work even faster. Speed up the process somehow, and “default answer: No”,
or something...

------
guessed
Could they be trying to build a payment service, something similar to PayPal
or ApplePay or TenPay?

------
samstave
cant the loophole here be simply that you have agreed to a TOS with FB, where
they said they wont be sharing data, but you may have agreed to the TOS of the
bank who says they share with third parties to determine credit worthiness
etc.

so then FB pay the bank for your financial data anf FB then mines said data
they purchsed from entity you authorised to do so... then FB "anonymizes" data
which it in turn sells as a product whereby the completeness and/relevance
value of the productized FB data is higher as it is informed by the data that
they purchased.

pluas it is trivial for facebook to correlate you with your bank and etc...

so, yeah, looks like fb can evily get around stupid TOS checks.

------
eaandkw
And here is when everyone's insurance premiums go up. It will work kind of
like shadow banning on Twitter. The rates will go up based on your past
purchases. Especially now that most credit cards provide level 3 transaction
details.

------
JustSomeNobody
I wonder if the banks are going to provide enough meta-data about their
customers that FB will be able to know which bank you bank at, what type of
accounts you have, etc. no matter what, ahem, privacy settings you have
enabled in FB?

~~~
ThrustVectoring
It's going to wind up as a targeting option. You can sell a million
impressions by people with a household income over $100k for far more than the
untargeted impression.

How it currently works is that _Chase_ etc knows how much money you make and
other banking information, so they can upload your contact info and run
targeted campaigns with a combination of Chase's information on your banking &
credit card info and Facebook's targeting. The change would allow Facebook to
categorize you based off your Chase financial info and let _other companies_
start paying a premium to advertise to you as well.

In practice, it means that when you get approved for an auto loan and start
shopping around, you'll magically start getting advertisements for cars and
dealerships, since there's now something like an "approved for an Auto loan in
the last 30 days" category that these businesses can target with their
advertising. Or when you open a business checking account you'll start getting
advertisements for point-of-sale systems.

------
dbg31415
This is so creepy, but expected.

Banks will say they are only handing over antonimized data... and Facebook
will find away to pair spending with location and de-anonymize the data —- a
move the banks anticipated and agreed to all along.

So shady.

------
artursapek
[https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-
Story/dp/08129778...](https://www.amazon.com/Super-Sad-True-Love-
Story/dp/0812977866)

------
sreyaNotfilc
Goodness, why can't Facebook just be a site used to connect people together?
Nothing more, nothing less.

How is sharing financial information helping me to connect with my high school
buddies?

------
jjgreen
If you value your privacy, use cash.

~~~
sgroppino
or bitcoin?

~~~
lozaning
Anymore bitcoin is getting harder and harder to obtain without some kind of
paper trail to your real identity. The only bitcoin I'd consider to be private
and untraceable right now would be bitcoin that was mined directly to a
wallet. Cant follow the thread past its end.

------
v0ldem0rt
The usual Facebook move! Why are people surprised here?

------
guessed
Are they trying to build something like Apple Pay?

------
pssflops
Now all my friends know my meager salary thanks to the latest breach at
Chasebook.

------
gt_
How can we determine which banks are participating?

