Facebook Holding Back Personal Data 125
itwbennett writes "Facebook has reduced the amount of personal data it releases to users as required by European Union law. Due to the volume of requests since Europe v. Facebook began its campaign, Facebook is no longer sending CDs to people. Facebook said in a statement that the CD mailout 'contains a level of detail that is less useful for the average user — it is a much rawer collection of data.' Instead, users are now directed to a page where they can download their personal 'archive,' which according to Facebook is a copy of 'all of the personal information you've shared on Facebook.' But rather than the 57 categories of data early data requesters received, the new tool downloads just 22 categories."
But I must give free reign to my inner narcissist! (Score:2, Insightful)
What did people THINK was going to happen when they signed up for Facebook and effectively dropped trou to the universe?
And expecting the grubby little data miners to play fair with people who they're making money off of?
Pfft! Yeah. What world are YOU from?
There's one solution to the problem of Facebook belching your data to whoever pays them their pound of flesh.
DON'T FUCKING SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK IN THE FIRST PLACE!
This is information you gave them. (Score:1, Insightful)
With a few exceptions, this is all data that you GAVE to Facebook willingly. This isn't like a credit reporting agency having information on you they got from other sources. You gave them everything they have and now you are upset they have it or won't tell you exactly what you gave them? Seems a bit silly to tell a secret to someone that you don't trust...
Re:But I must give free reign to my inner narcissi (Score:5, Insightful)
What did people THINK was going to happen when they signed up for Facebook and effectively dropped trou to the universe?
And expecting the grubby little data miners to play fair with people who they're making money off of?
Pfft! Yeah. What world are YOU from?
There's one solution to the problem of Facebook belching your data to whoever pays them their pound of flesh.
DON'T FUCKING SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK IN THE FIRST PLACE!
With most people, that kind of obvious realization breaks down the moment having some control over their own life involves denying oneself a convenience that is dangled in front of them like bait. The form of the convenience could be the service itself that Facebook offers. It could be (for most anyway) failure to bear the always rewarding but sometimes heavy burden of being a real individual, such as having to explain to friends that you have good reason not to use the site even if they would prefer to contact you with it. Of course a real friend would understand and respect that and not demand (by acting hurt, annoyed, etc) that you conform to their example for something so optional, but judging from the way most people talk about bandwagon appeals and peer pressure it seems most people think this kind of manipulation is normal and legitimate.
It's the same reason most boycotts don't get off the ground. The moment people would have to make do without a luxury or prepare something themselves instead of having it pre-packaged or some other test of their commitment to principle, they cave. It doesn't matter what the company has done to make itself unworthy of continued patronage. It's most unfortunate but the masses of people are pushovers who won't take a stand for much of anything unless they feel (correctly or not) that their back is against a wall.
I suppose most of you reading this think it's a good thing that government intervenes to regulate Facebook. If this were food safety or building construction or some other thing that is a matter of life-and-death, where great damage could be done before any reason for a user/customer to suspect a problem has manifested, then I would agree with you. As it stands now with Facebook, I say that the moment you interfere with this process and shelter this kind of spinelessness is the moment you prevent the character growth of those who are badly in need of a lesson. I know it looks like a nice thing to do but that's short-term thinking; in the long run it makes the problem worse.
Those who have a clue, care about privacy, and make their own decisions avoided Facebook from the beginning. The rest are making their beds and should not be prevented from laying in them.
Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a lot more info they have about you, that you didn't give them voluntarily.
Facebook cookies track your movements on third-party web sites. Until recently logging off from Facebook did not help (reported extensively on /. over the last months).
Facebook tries to recognise and automatically tag people in other people's photos: you're in your friend's photo, are tagged automatically or by that friend, and another bit of information about you becomes available to Facebook and it's out of your control.
You may be mentioned (tagged) in a friend's comment. Again you didn't volunteer that information about you to Facebook, someone else does, and you don't have control about it.
You can not delete comments or photos. Many people think they can as there is a "delete" function, but all it does is hide this information from you and other users. It's not gone as in deleted, it's merely hidden, and is still there.
You can not close and delete your account. You can't even close it afaik.
All this info on Facebook is there forever, out of your control. And the last part is maybe the most damning of all. There is no control over your own data on Facebook. They pretend to give you some (by allowing "delete") but in reality they don't (it's not deleted). They collect info about you that is not given by you, instead it's collected automatically and is info that is about things you do outside of Facebook. Those things should worry people. It is not about the info you put in your profile, it's not about what you write yourself in your comments or the photos you post yourself, not even about the external links in friend's messages that you click. It's the rest of the information that's gathered in the background, unknown to you, out of your control.
Re:But I must give free reign to my inner narcissi (Score:3, Insightful)
For people of a certain age, virtually all of their friends use Facebook as a primary means of communication. In other words, not using Facebook means social isolation. That's not a particularly worthwhile tradeoff, nor is it even a guarantee of privacy. You don't need an account on Facebook for people to post things about you. I have friends who post tons of photos of their young children and the funny things their children say.
In other words, let's say that you don't have a FB account, yet somehow still manage to find out about a party. Is it still possible for FB to learn of your attendance at said party and your amusing (yet seemingly private) actions at said party? Yes, because anybody at the party can post a photo of you at the party to FB and put your name on it.
dom
Re:But I must give free reign to my inner narcissi (Score:1, Insightful)
If you don't want to adhere to EU privacy laws, don't do business in the EU. What is so difficult in that?
Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter where the data came from, or how it was collected. If you hold personal data on a person, you are legally required to provide it to that person on request. All of it. There's no exception for data that the person gave you willingly, there's no exception for data that's "less useful for the average user", and there's no exception for "data that would reveal our trade secrets", which is the excuse Facebook used for withholding some data the last time.
This is nothing to do with making data more useful for the average user, it's about cutting costs, and breaking both the spirit and the letter of EU law as much as possible while attempting to look helpful and hoping that nobody notices.
Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not using facebook, I have no account, but still they're collecting data about me.
Re:Facebook sends CD's? (Score:5, Insightful)
It took me a while to realise that "Free Market" was a synonym for "God" in America: always the right option; solves all problems; inherently moral to follow and immoral to restrict; if it seems to be going wrong then it must be either something else's fault or a means to an end which we are not worthy to understand; etc.
Re:Facebook sends CD's? (Score:2, Insightful)
Rather than address the caricature ("crony capitalism"), I'll keep it simple: the free market is nothing more (or less) than a statement that groups of people are both untrustworthy (as individuals and in groups) and yet the only means of efficiently measuring the desires of other people.
So on two points the free market is held up in opposition-- not to government (in se), but to "Statism": (1) that all transactions should be done without violence and (2) central planning necessarily fails to accurately predict (a) pricing or (b) goods and quantities (as a function of failed pricing analysis). (1) is violated when the state compels one to (a) not do something one otherwise wants or (b) do something one would not otherwise do. (2) was largely proven by Mises, and does not imply that private entities are superior at the analysis or prediction, only that they care more due to the profit/loss requirements.
"Statism" looks to government as its god in the same way you broadly accuse Americans of looking to the idol of "Free Market". Us Paleo-Conservative minarchists (new word for the day) don't want government abolished-- we already agree we need it because evil exists, we just want it to operate in its proper sphere.The very crony capitalism/corporatism you despise is a function of the a state failure, not a market failure. You want a solution? It's not "Regulation" that's the answer, it's "Enforcement." We don't need any new laws, quotas, procedures, or double-check overhead to know that bad stuff gets done, and such things NEVER catch it beforehand. What we need is for our executive branches (not digging at POTUS, just the entire "law enforcement" segment of government) to have the stones to throw the cronies in jail. Don't blame the market for failures at the governmental level, and don't look to the already-failing bureaucrat for a solution