
Facebook submits 454 pages of written follow-up answers to Congress - aylmao
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/facebook-congress-answers-senate/
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tinalumfoil
> Facebook does not create profiles or track website visits for people without
> a Facebook account.

This is pretty unbelievable for a company that makes their money from ads. I
would almost say this is commendable if true, but...

> We use the browser and app logs that apps and websites send to us—described
> above—in the following ways for non-Facebook users.

This is pretty misleading. It's like when FB basically secretly redefined
"third party" to mean what was convenient for them. So we don't have
"profiles" of non-FB users, and we would never "track" such users, but in lieu
of that we store logs containing identifying information and use that analyze
their usage?

I can understand since the profile isn't being used for advertising why this
might be an okay simplification in casual conversation, but this is
unacceptable in a letter to Congress.

I've only skimmed this but the rest of this isn't much better either. In
another question by the same senator about how long they store deleted users'
data they don't give a clear answer (at best we know in some cases it can be
over a year). It also comes up a few times where they're very protective of
ads targeting/excluding protected groups (which makes sense since targeted ads
are their bread and butter). I haven't looked at the second scribd, but I
doubt it's any more informative.

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zacharycohn
Great job, Techcrunch, on not providing any sort of analysis whatsoever.

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bribroder
The scribd links aren't working for me, here are the Senate committee PDFs

[https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Zuckerberg%20...](https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Zuckerberg%20Responses%20to%20Judiciary%20Committee%20QFRs.pdf)

[https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Zuckerberg%20...](https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Zuckerberg%20Responses%20to%20Commerce%20Committee%20QFRs1.pdf)

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dsfyu404ed
It's intern season. There's plenty of manpower available to parse that.

Judging by their replies they seem to be saying that they walk right up to the
letter of the law in many cases. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that
they're contradicting themselves.

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xemoka
It's unfortunate they refused to follow Cruz's onerous directions, it would
have really made an excellent package. Is this normal for responses to Senate
Committees (for us non-US folks)?

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kumarvvr
Wow. Is this because of the new revelations about their data sharing
activities?

It's high time people stop trusting FB altogether.

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zacharycohn
No, during Zuck's testimony he frequently deferred on answering questions, so
he could get accurate information to provide later.

It is not unusual to provide written and more detailed answers to questions
after testifying. This number of times he deferred was a perhaps a little
unusual though.

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cjhopman
As you understand more of the details of a complex system, it becomes harder
for you to, off the cuff, answer seemingly simple questions to the best of
your knowledge.

