

Facebook May Soon Be Tracking You At All Times - draker
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattmiller/2013/02/05/facebook-know-where-you-are/

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mullingitover
Eh, disable location services for your facebook app. I assumed they already
did this.

And if you don't want facebook to know anything about you, you can still use
facebook. Here's the secret: just don't tell facebook everything about
yourself. It's not hard to do.

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greengreens
The problem with that is your friends indirectly tell Facebook. Facebook can
fill in the rest.

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sharkweek
I'm curious, a lot of my information is snarky (location: Antarctica,
religious views: Nihilist, etc) -- I wonder if they're able to realize that
I'm obviously being intentionally inaccurate?

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greengreens
To put it another way, you don't have to talk to a person to 'know' them to
varying degrees of certainty. You can gather bits of information and build
your own image with out ever meeting.

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uiri
I don't see why anyone would treat places that they go carrying a smartphone
as private data. The phone has the data and cell phone networks (in the US, at
least) do collect the data (or used to)[1]. Giving Facebook the data basically
just de-anonymizes it since it seems perfectly conceivable and natural that
some of the collectors of this data would take it in aggregate, anonymize it,
and sell it to companies, if for no other reason than they can make money off
of this data. The solution to this kind of tracking (if it bothers one) is to
not use a cell phone. And if you don't want facebook to know anything about
you then you should not use facebook (instead of or in addition to, not using
a cell phone).

[1] [https://www.propublica.org/article/cellphone-companies-
will-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/cellphone-companies-will-share-
your-location-data-just-not-with-you)

~~~
alec
My bank knows about most of my purchases, but it is still considered private
data. My health care provider knows about my medical history, but it is still
considered private data. Why should a cell phone provider be any different?

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uiri
I see no reason why banks couldn't in principle do the same thing with
purchasing data that carriers do with location data. There ought to be a
distinction between private as in confidential and private as in "confined to
multiple parties each of whom the data's subject knows of". Health data is so
sensitive that it is protected under various laws and in most developed
countries (the US being the largest exception) health care is run by the
government rather than private companies. Unlike with health data, it is
possible to avoid having banks and cell phone carriers collect data about you
- always use cash and don't have a cell phone. In addition to being a _very_
paranoid course of action, this is impractical for most especially when the
privacy trade off is likely to be worth it in most cases. When those who
already have your location data is considered, giving up your location data to
Facebook oughtn't be too big of a stretch when they already know about
birthdays, weddings, funerals, your friend network, etc. Retailers will
already piece together private information about you from purchasing data that
they can collect[1] and this is the position which apps seem to currently be
in - neither Facebook nor Target want to make guesses at the rest of your
private life but it is impractical for Target to make a request directly while
Facebook has no qualms about doing so.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
targe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-
figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/)

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rayiner
> Health data is so sensitive that it is protected under various laws

There is no reason we can't pass laws preventing Facebook from tracking and
using such information. We don't have to settle for "don't use a cell phone"
or "don't use Facebook."

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coditor
Sigh, I wish I could make a Facebook with just the keep in touch with friends
feature, and nothing else. Facebook itself it turning into a 70's horror
movie, The Blob.

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webwanderings
I think Google already does that. There's a Google Map process which runs on
Android in the background. It comes back even if you turn it off.

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yellowbkpk
At least Google's process has a bit more benefit than Facebook's: you can see
the location data they collect from your phone by turning on Latitude and its
history app. They also use this data to improve traffic and map data and (if
you have WiFi on) to improve their coarse location data.

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artursapek
Related story: "People without Facebook accounts are suspicious."

I'm quickly losing respect for Forbes lately.

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thyrsus
This is why I won't carry a cell phone from which I can't remove the battery.

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Semaphor
Blocking the location permission or going into airplane mode would be another
option.

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voltagex_
This does not bode well for those people for whom Facebook is a pre-installed
(and often unremovable) app on new phones.

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dt7
You can however disable pre-installed apps on newer Android (4+?) phones.

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analog
Privacy issues aside isn't this going to reduce battery life dramatically?

