
Facebook documents show plans to sell access to user data discussed for years - uptown
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/mark-zuckerberg-leveraged-facebook-user-data-fight-rivals-help-friends-n994706
======
hackinthebochs
>Facebook gave Amazon extended access to user data because it was...
partnering with the social network on the launch of its Fire smartphone.

So is this yet another case of the media being incapable of distinguishing
between transferring of data to third parties and displaying data on devices
as an agent of the user, i.e. for the purpose of providing an integrated
facebook experience? Until the media shows itself to be capable of making that
distinction, I can't take these articles seriously.

~~~
b_tterc_p
You’re quote doesn’t really prove that it was just giving access to amazon
devices. Could go either way, no?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Every other time the issue has come up, it's turned out that "access to user
data" meant that the third party was allowed to ask the user for access to
their data.

In principle this could be the first time Facebook actually just tossed
database dumps at Amazon, and in principle Amazon might have abused the access
to steal user data for themselves. But neither of those possibilities seem
likely or are supported by the described evidence.

~~~
mancerayder
_Every other time the issue has come up, it 's turned out that "access to user
data" meant that the third party was allowed to ask the user for access to
their data._

Allowed to ask the user? Can you unwrap that for us?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
To use most user-data-serving Facebook APIs, you need both authorization from
the user whose data you’re reading and approval from Facebook itself for your
app. Facebook has been accused of bad behavior when approving and denying
apps, but they haven’t (as far has been reported) released any APIs to get
user data without first asking the user.

~~~
ForHackernews
This is true, but I doubt most users understood exactly what they handed over
when they clicked "log in with Facebook".

~~~
alex_57_dieck
at least there's always a tldr (you know what exactly you are handing over in
a few bullet points), especially when you think of all the contracts/fine
prints/ToS you accept in life..

------
3xblah
"The facts are clear: we've never sold people's data." \- Paul Grewal, VP and
Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Facebook

Yeah, but that is not what is being alleged.

What is being alleged is that you sell _access_ to people's data.

This constant recitation of "We do not sell users' data" is like being in late
stage litigation where each party's lawyers have chosen their respective
arguments. They will cling to them no matter what happens, repeating them ad
nauseum until the end.

Facebook's argument is "We do not sell people's data".

The issue however is not selling people's data. As such, this is not an
argument. It is just misdirection.

The issue is selling _access_ to people's data.

Maybe we could call this "licensing"? Maybe it is more desirable for Facebook
to license access to people's data than to sell it.

"People's data" might be their friends list, or whatever they have uploaded or
contributed to Zuckerberg's website.

Facebook's lawyers will not address the issue of selling access to people's
data. The reason is clear: they do not have a winning argument.

Then we have the matter of metadata. Facebook will let a user download their
data, but not their metadata. All that data on her usage patterns on
facebook.com and across the web that Facebook collects 24/7/365, e.g. via
"Like" beacons and "Sign-In with Facebook".

If a user downloads her data from Facebook it does not tell her anything she
didn't already know. It is simply the data she submitted to Zuckerberg.

But of course he has much more data about her that she is not allowed to see.
The question is, "Why not?"

~~~
smallgovt
I agree Facebook is playing word games, but I think that misses the larger
point. That is, Facebook is not selling access to people's data as understood
by the lay person.

The average person interprets "Facebook sells access to your data" as meaning
that someone can pay Facebook to access your individual data. e.g. What sites
did 3xblah, specifically, visit last week?

This isn't how Facebook's ecosystem works. Advertisers can only target users
in large groups. And, there's no way for advertisers to query Facebook's
servers for the personal data of a specific user.

If you explain exactly what Facebook is doing to the average person they
simply don't care (even if you explain all the potential risks to their
personal security).

~~~
averageperson
(You are addressing the advertiser ecosystem while the focus here is the app
ecosystem.)

The "word games" may not be aimed at the "average person". They might be
intended to mislead those who have a concern with what Facebook might be
doing. For example, it might be part of their job. The FTC is an obvious
example, but there are many individuals and groups who are interested in
Facebook's activities relating to privacy.

Incidentally, how do you know these things about the "average person"? Is
there a citation to some studies you have read?

------
AlexandrB
> “As we’ve said many times, Six4Three — creators of the Pikinis app — cherry
> picked these documents from years ago as part of a lawsuit to force Facebook
> to share information on friends of the app's users,” Paul Grewal, vice
> president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, said in a statement
> released by the company.

> “The set of documents, by design, tells only one side of the story and omits
> important context. ...”

Seems like an easy problem to solve. Release the documents that provide the
"important context". Unless they're even more damning or don't exist...

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
They've already made it clear that (they claim) the overall framing was user
privacy. Maybe they're lying, but if they aren't I don't know what further
context they could provide.

~~~
JohnFen
There has been so much lying on these topics (not only from Facebook) that
what the companies claim means little unless they can support the claim with
evidence.

------
black_puppydog
If someone from the media is reading along here: it would be nice to mention
every now and again that the "grumpy old progress hating nerds" have a pretty
good track record at condemning fb/google. This entire branch of news that I
would maybe call "dystopia gawking" just provokes a huge "told you so" in
parts of the tech community, and that would be a good thing to keep in mind
during the next gold rush.

~~~
AlexandrB
I wonder why people were so unwilling to accept Zuckerberg's own sentiment
("dumb fucks") about their data for years. It seems like that's _basically_
the attitude at Facebook from the top down. Everything else is PR spin.

~~~
dymk
“Dumb fucks” is more overplayed than “Google is going to shut down <service>”.
It’s FUD. Zuckerberg said that when his tiny website was open to his
classmates and a few others, and hasn’t been representative of how the company
functions.

I seriously cant believe that it’s still a meme people use to justify their
hate for Facebook.

~~~
okmokmz
It has been perfectly representative of how the company functions. Collecting
and monetizing data from the "dumb fucks" with little to no regard for
anything other than profits and getting people addicted to their apps

edit1: Guess I made some facebook engineers upset as I'm being downvoted.
Looks like dymk is likely a facebook engineer, as his comment history has lots
of comments seemingly supporting facebook, data collection, and ads, or at the
very least arguing against those that oppose them. Reframe it however you
want, Zuckerberg, Facebook, and its engineers are immoral and not concerned
with the privacy or security of anyone's data. The people that knowingly
continue to work their are complicit in the net negative impact facebook has
on society

edit2: dymk is no longer a software engineer at facebook, but he was until
early this year

~~~
netsharc
> Collecting and monetizing data from the "dumb fucks" with little to no
> regard.

I doubt humans are that simplistic, but at the end of the day, it seems they
all have a price, and for that price they can invent lies so they can sleep at
night thinking they're decent people.

And until this headline I thought they (and Zuck in particular) still had a
code of honor when they say they won't abuse the trust their users had, but,
well, apparenly that also has a price.

~~~
okmokmz
Why until this headline? Stories like this about Facebook and Zuck have been
coming out for years

------
sonnyblarney
There is a world of difference between literally selling user data to whoever
for money, and providing API access so that users of other platforms can chose
to share their own data with that platform.

The journalists lately are doing us all a huge disservice by conflating the
two.

I haven't seen any evidence at all that FB was selling user data.

I've posted here a couple times on this issue, having been personally involved
on the other side of the table in one of these 'deals' \- and it was only ever
a matter of getting our app integrated into FB so that our users could access
_their own data_. We didn't use any of the data, though some 3rd parties would
then have access to that data and do whatever with it, but only with it _with
the permission of the users_.

The article doesn't provide specifics, but from what I can gather, this really
is about 'special API access', and shouldn't be frame as 'FB sharing user
data'. This is simply unfair to FB however we might think of them because it
misrepresents the issue.

In short: FB has publicly available APIs which 3rd parties can use to allow
their users to do some integration. Some of those APIs provide quite a bit of
access, and so there's reasonable discussion about 'who' they should give
access to. It's also perfectly reasonable that FB wanted to sell access to
such APIs, or to have some kind of reciprocity.

VISA, Mastercard and AMEX are out there selling your data (on the aggregate,
down to the zip code) to whoever wants to buy it, which is far worse and in
many cases may theoretically compromise your identity.

FB has a lot to answer for, surely, but the information needs to be more
clearly communicated. Sometimes, I'm not even sure if the journalists
understand what is going on.

~~~
chillacy
Law of headlines: if it bleeds it leads...

To get crisp, selling data is selling the keys to the kingdom, it would remove
FB's need to exist. There are strong economic motivations to not go out of
business.

------
danso
Some of these documents have been made public before late last year. All of
them seem to still be related to the Six4Three lawsuit:

> _The documents stem from a California court case between the social network
> and the little-known startup Six4Three, which sued Facebook in 2015 after
> the company announced plans to cut off access to some types of user data.
> Six4Three’s app, Pikinis, which soft-launched in 2013, relied on that data
> to allow users to easily find photos of their friends in bathing suits._

------
HillRat
I do appreciate how their “Director of Platform Partnerships” was also
apparently in charge of killing platforms FB thought had become too popular.
Great folks to do business with, I’m sure.

------
rahuldottech
At this point, literally nothing about this is surprising

------
mariushn
How many of the commenters here still use WhatsApp? Did you try switching you
& friends to Signal?

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
I use it. Yes I've tried. They don't want to switch :/

~~~
thekyle
Same with me, apparently being able to change the background of chats is an
"essential feature".

~~~
asark
Certain People in One's Life may be incapable of correctly addressing their
messages without this feature, so yeah, it's pretty important.

------
OrgNet
The current title of the article is: Mark Zuckerberg leveraged Facebook user
data to fight rivals and help friends, leaked documents show

------
musicale
The whole point of Facebook's social graph API is to get access to user data.
Usually without permission or consent.

------
duxup
It doesn't seem there really are any rules or limits at Facebook.

------
thepangolino
Glad to see this out in the open.

~~~
seattle_spring
Definitely! I've never seen a post on HN expose FB until now. This one post,
just today. Right now.

------
HenryBemis
News: Zuckerberg is a thieving lying snake. Facebook is cancer. As long as
these snakes don't go to prison, this will not stop/end.

~~~
threeseed
Can we please stop with the hyperbole ?

Facebook absolutely deserves to be regulated but right now nothing they or
Zuckerberg has done is remotely illegal.

~~~
cjslep
Don't confuse legality with morality.

~~~
threeseed
And people should only go to prison when they commit a crime.

The rule of law does not centre around who is nice or not.

~~~
cjslep
That's exactly what OP is saying: since they're not going to prison because
the law lets them continue, it won't stop.

------
Grustaf
Absolute shocker.

------
dannykwells
Zuck literally is becoming a charicature. What a joke.

Except that world democracy is at stake.

Can we regulate these goons yet or what?

~~~
chillacy
The Facebook killing democracy meme is flattering for technologists but imo
too simplistic. In America there are a number of “democracy killers” or “this
is why we have trump” in the mainstream narrative: Russia, Racism, FBI,
Facebook, electoral college, etc.

Let’s not forget people tilt towards economic or cultural nationalism for a
reason, and it’s in our power to address those reasons directly, not chase
band aid solutions.

~~~
netsharc
A quip I read says: "Of course it's totally Putin's fault that Trump won,
because actually everyone in the USA loves neoliberalism deep at heart!".

But Facebook became an effective tool for a "voter hacking", if you believe
the coverage about Cambridge Analytica: data-mine the Facebook profiles to
determine the targets (apparently as little as several thousand people in the
swing states), and then use FB's targeted advertising to influence these
people with videos you know will get them emotionally. Boom. Hacking
elections/voting machines is illegal, but no one ever said anything about
hacking the voters, right?

~~~
chillacy
Maybe, but unlike hacking voting machines (which remove voters) this scheme
relies on rallying real people to go and vote. It would have been achievable
with traditional campaigning methods, just more expensively.

But why aren't we addressing the underlying issue of why these several
thousand people in swing states thought to vote in this way? How come the
mainstream response is to say "gee I wish those people hadn't voted"?

I think addressing the underlying concerns would be more effective. I get that
politics can be zero-sum at times but campaigning in swing states and
targeting issues that those voters find important should be part of every
campaign.

------
neves
Please read this. This isn't just another routine news that Zuck lied and
Facebook is evil. They had access to more than 4.000 previously unreleased
documents.

Democracy is at stake. Facebook and its subsidiaries are destroying our
societies. The problem is global. Not because it is happening in a far away
country you shouldn't care. You can already see the increase in Amazon
deforestation due to Bolsonaro election in Brazil.

~~~
threeseed
You can't blame Facebook for the rise of right wing leaders.

It's been happening in US, Italy, Israel, Poland, Hungary, Phillipines and now
Brazil and the trend will continue whilst those leaders offer strength,
populism and can point to immigrants as the cause of society's problems.

~~~
whatshisface
Yes, and a corrupt left-wing leader could use the exact same techniques. Like
the guns they put on the back of Toyota trucks in third world countries, this
tracking stuff has no particular allegiance.

~~~
cageface
Promoting negative emotions is a lot easier than promoting positive emotions.
To a very large degree the platform of the right is currently heavily weighted
toward provoking fear and anger, negative emotions easy to stoke in people.

This might change and we may have an ascendant party on the left with a
primarily negative message eventually. And I'm not saying the current left
never does this. But at the moment the right's playbook fits existing social
media better.

~~~
whatshisface
I hope to avoid a political debate, but the left has plenty of negative
messages too. The rich are too rich and don't have to pay taxes, the poor are
too poor, racism never completely went away, the corporate world is unfair to
women, and so on. I doubt there has ever been a political movement without any
negative messages. I should add in support of your point about social media
having a propensity to negativity, these negative left-leaning messages tend
to spread faster than the positive ones, just like on the right wing.

~~~
danans
> but the left has plenty of negative messages too. The rich are too rich and
> don't have to pay taxes, the poor are too poor, racism never completely went
> away, the corporate world is unfair to women, and so on.

Those are hardly negative, and to equate their tone with far right rhetoric is
textbook false equivalency. They are if anything just positions that one may
or may not agree with about the just distribution of wealth and opportunity.

None of them are even in same ballpark or kind as the current toxic rhetoric
on the far right, such as "[Mexicans] are criminals", "Muslims are trying to
impose Sharia law in the US", "blood and soil", "we can't rebuild our
civilization with someone else's babies" (that one is paraphrasing from a
sitting member of Congress).

That is the rhetoric of racial and ethnic nationalism, which is almost totally
a far right phenomenon on social media. There is no equivalent on the far left
today, and that's not to say that it can't develop. But to do so with
literally require a complete change of the people who make up the left.

~~~
whatshisface
You don't have to dig very far to find some stupid kids on Reddit going off on
that "eat the rich" stuff - but the thing is, your "stupid kids" are their
"horrible violent mob," and their "stupid kids" are your "horrible violent
mob." In reality they're both a little bit violent and definitely both stupid.
;)

Social media and regular media both contribute to this perception because
everyone wants to forget about their own bad associations and focus on the bad
associations of others. So, if you want to find out about nationalists you
read left-leaning publications and if you want to find out about radical-to-
the-point-of-silliness leftists you have to read right-leaning publications.

~~~
danans
> You don't have to dig very far to find some stupid kids on Reddit > Social
> media and regular media both contribute to this perception

3 of the 4 examples of right wing rhetoric I quoted were uttered publicly by
right wing elected officials (including the highest current elected in the
land), not by people entertaining themselves on Reddit. The fourth was shouted
publicly by crowds in Charlottesville.

The difference between right and left rhetoric is one of kind, not degree.
Ethnic nationalism is not a motivating factor on the left today.

Class tensions and frustration over the distribution of opportunity and wealth
- yes, those are prominent left-wing issues and that rhetoric is often
expressed via insensitive metaphors targeted at the very wealthy, but again,
it's not even comparable to the rhetoric of ethnic nationalism.

------
lifehacked
They should arrest Zuckerberger, I'd like to see RICO applied within the ranks
of a single corporation, epic trial.

~~~
Balgair
I'll let Popehat handle this one:
[https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-
rico-...](https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/)

------
socialhack3r
Folks should check out this article that explains how Facebook intentionally
did not pass along privacy metadata to developers. Shows how a lot of the so
called "breaches" happened. Hint: they weren't breaches, it was privacy
violation by design. [https://medium.com/@six4three/deceit-by-design-zucks-
dirty-s...](https://medium.com/@six4three/deceit-by-design-zucks-dirty-secret-
he-doesn-t-want-you-to-know-67dcc94e2b5d)

