Facebook Responds to EPIC FTC Timeline Complaint 150
An anonymous reader writes with a snippet from a ZDNet article: "The Electronic Privacy Information Center is unhappy with the way Facebook launched its new Timeline profile. Last month, the privacy organization complained Facebook went too far because it started rolling out the redesign without asking users first. EPIC then followed up with a (four-page letter (PDF) to the Federal Trade Commission asking it to investigate the new feature to insure that it meets with the terms of a November 29th FTC-Facebook settlement. Facebook denies these claims, saying that the Timeline launch has nothing to do with its users' privacy."
What it has to do with privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a new, condensed view (Score:2)
It just makes you even more aware/scared of all the things Facebook has on you. Which is good.
Aside from the privacy-concerns of giving away so much information at once it is a really nice visualization feature.
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Anyone could see those years and dates to begin with. They were always there.
According to the complaint in TFA, that is not quite true.
EPIC described Facebook’s launch by saying the social networking giant is posting “archived user information” so as to make “old posts available under Facebook’s current downgraded privacy settings” all “without user consent.” Furthermore, the group noted “users have just a week to clean up their history before Timeline goes live.”
So if you do nothing and the feature goes live, information that would have previously been not displayed due to your privacy settings will now be displayed.
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one of Facebook's motive is to confuse users as much it can with respect to privacy. Timeline is doing that. for e.g., if u enable timeline any person on FB can see where u are born
you mean people will be able to view what is already public record? oh the horror!
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It's a cosmetic change. There is nothing visible that wasn't visible to begin with.
Agreed. The backlash after any Facebook redesign is ridiculous. Now we have to complain to the FTC?
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So, my evidence here is third hand, as I've never used Facebook, but based on the rantings and ravings of a certain vagina possessing friend
Most of us call them women...
HTH
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No, his friend just carries a used vagina in his pocket. It's quite creepy really :(
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It will, however, make facebook worse.
Not that this should be a legal issue, but every time they make a change to the interface, it gets worse.
Re:What it has to do with privacy? (Score:4, Funny)
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It used to get real slow to find posts more than a couple pages off the first wall page (things may have changed in 2 years though).
But I agree, stuff used to be there. Also, don't you need to install a timeline app, and pick who gets to see a timeline vs your wall?
I hardly feel it was shoved down users throats.
Re:What it has to do with privacy? (Score:5)
And if he does? You just have to be smart with what information you enter, and what you do with it, and there, no risk at all.
Seriously, there's no real reason to hate on Facebook, at the very least, not this time. As for the users, there's no reason to hate on them at all just because they use Facebook.
Re:What it has to do with privacy? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What it has to do with privacy? (Score:5, Informative)
Adblock Plus - add a rule to block "http://a.fsdn.com/sd/commentshareicons.png"
Seems to have fixed it for me, they are most annoying and I can't think of a time I have ever wanted to share someone else's slashdot post on social media sites.
Re:What it has to do with privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I went above and beyond and just blocked them everywhere.
#a(href*=facebook.com/sharer)
#a(href*=plusone.google.com/_/+1)
#a(href*=twitter.com/intent)
If that causes problems I might restrict them to slashdot.org. But it probably won't.
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The ghostery plug-in also gives a satisfying smackdown to numerous scripty page warts and barnacles-with-ears.
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The ghostery plug-in also gives a satisfying smackdown to numerous scripty page warts and barnacles-with-ears.
Seconded. It's currently blocking two trackers and three social network plugins (which are probably trackers as well) on Slashdot. It will also block many third-party discussion plugins like Facebook comments under articles at online newspapers, which may or may not be regarded as a benefit according to your view. I personally find that discussions under news articles are seldom constructive. Before some smartass jokes about me reading Slashdot comments, that's a different case entirely :)
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Can you explian this edit? Are they added somewhere in ad-block plus, some file on the system? I too don't like the social buttons to default to always pop up on my pages.
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Yes, they're AdBlock Plus blocking rules. Put them in the Element Hiding Rules section.
They block <a> tags based on the content of their href attribute. *= means "contains the following string".
Putting slashdot.org before the # will restrict to this domain (and subdomains of it).
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I actually use Facebook. Your custom HOSTS file would make Facebook simply not work.
Rest those tired caps (Score:2)
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Tell that to APK, not me.
Anyway, FAT32 is case-insensitive. It doesn't care, and neither do I.
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Oh, and before you say anything, so is NTFS.
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No, never mind, this was about Facebook and I (strangely) assumed you were talking about Facebook.
I'd like to know how Slashdot looks without the CSS from a.fsdn.com. My guess is, it looks like shit. But I don't suppose that bothers you. Personally, I like the AJAX-y goodness that is Slashdot 2.0. If you like bludgeoning the internet into barely-working crap before you read it, that's your business.
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Looks fine, & LOADS A HELL OF A LOT FASTER TOO & safe(r) also!
LOL, no, I just tried it out of curiosity and it does indeed look like utter crap if you HOSTS-block the a.fsdn.com domain.
If anyone is curious as to what it looks like, and doesn't want to muck with their HOSTS file, just go to View -> Page Style -> No Style. Then when you've had enough of the unstyled HTML vomit, go back and select Basic Page Style to fix it.
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You *MAY* wish 2 read _0xd0ad's post
Read it? I wrote it.
Apparently, it's really -> fbcdn.com to 'block' (or not) from this poster _0xd0ad here
Blocking fbcdn.com will make Facebook not work. I did not say you should block it. Unless you can block it on everything except Facebook, so that Facebook will still work. But your HOSTS file can't do that.
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The ONLY time I have "issues" with facebook pages, is this (in my router rules for security)
Of course you will have issues with Facebook pages if you set your router to block cookies. Most of Facebook requires you to be logged in. Logging in requires enabling cookies.
Did you really fail to realize that most of Facebook won't work if you block cookies? You seemed like a halfway intelligent guy until that.
Yup, got ya... I was just trying to get folks to "watch out" for what YOU said (fbcdn.com) vs. what NURSIE said (a.fsdn.com)
Oh please. Do you really expect anyone to believe that?
Blocking the URL that Nursie said to block will prevent the annoying image from loading. Blocking the <a> tags by their href attribute
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I'll "read on" as soon as you have figured out for sure which of the options on your router was raping Facebook.
I say it's cookies.
Facebook doesn't even use Java, by the way.
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Like I said, your router is broken. I wouldn't trust a router to mangle HTML anyway. HTML should be parsed in the browser, not the router. I want my router to give my browser exactly what it asked for. Nothing more, nothing less.
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I'd be interested, though, in a pastebin dump of the Facebook source code both with and without your router mangling it, just to see what your router did that broke Facebook.
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Oh, it works FINE... I like it in fact!
Its Java-blocking feature breaks websites that don't use Java. That's pretty broken IMHO.
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Oh, and by the way, fsdn.com is Slashdot, not Facebook. You're thinking of fbcdn.com.
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Nursie said to block a very specific URL, not an entire subdomain. You and your hammer are unwelcome here. Not every problem is a nail. You can't just bash an entire subdomain into nonexistence because you don't like ONE PICTURE on it.
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I know that, but... When YOU or Nursie post the correct information between you? Then, I make appropriate statements
Either one of our filter rules would have worked just fine, thanks very much. Neither of us was "wrong", and we didn't disagree in anything except giving two different ways to do the same thing.
And you've got to be kidding if you think I want to read any of your irrelevant linked pages.
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You're restricted to 1 browser/app
I only use one browser. Works for me.
NOT "irrelevant" @ all - That post of mine?
No offense, but you posted a TON of stuff. That post of yours was huge, and I'm not reading the entire thing, not even skimming. Much less clicking any of the links.
Plus, face it: ADBLOCK "ain't what it used to be", per this /. article no less:
Adblock Plus Developers To Allow 'Acceptable' Ads - Slashdot
My AdBlock works perfectly well. I have that option turned off.
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I have to test on ALL major browsers (read IE9 (mostly from IE, it's current), Opera, FireFox (Waterfox here), & yes even Safari + others too).
Quite frankly, if you "test" on browsers while blocking ads, you're not really "testing". The ads could break the page and you'd never know it.
In any event, I *think* you & I have "smoothed out" our "minor differences" (just "crossed wires" imo, but I do think we're on the "same page" now's all)...
Whatever. Now if you could use sane paragraphs, nice, short, concise posts, and cut out all the annoying yelling (caps and boldface)... then we'd really be on the same page.
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No, Nursie was correct: if you AdBlock that URL (not the entire a.fsdn.com subdomain), the annoying icons will be blocked on Slashdot.
See here for my AdBlock rules that block annoying Facebook/Google+/Twitter integration everywhere [slashdot.org] (not just on Slashdot).
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I don't block the host-domain you noted ... I do BLOCK OUT a.fsdn.com
So which is it? You don't block it or you do?
I see no "issues" with the page display (it's faster if anything & quite possibly more secure)
And it looks like unstyled HTML vomit, but like I said, that probably wouldn't bother you.
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I block what Nursie said (a.fsdn.com)
HOWEVER - NOT what you wrote (fbcdn.com)
Good for you. Personally, I block BOTH of them (actually, those 2 plus 3 more: facebook.com, facebook.net, and fbcdn.net), with AdBlock Plus:
||facebook.com^$third-party,domain=~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net
||facebook.net^$third-party,domain=~facebook.com|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net
||fbcdn.com^$third-party,domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.net
||fbcdn.net^$third-party,domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com
||fsdn.com^$third-party,domain=~slashdot.org
And since they are third-party filter rules wit
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You remembered incorrectly. AdBlock Plus rules are not written in Javascript. In fact, you don't have to write them in any code at all... there is a user-friendly interface to help write AdBlock Plus rules, as seen in this .png image [ompldr.org].
The help tooltip for "Restrict to domain" even tells how to set up domain restrictions/exclusions:
"Use this option to specify one or more domains separated by a bar line (|). The filter will only be applied on the domain(s) selected. A tilde (~) before a domain name indicates t
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If we're getting Slashdot-related wishes granted, I'd prefer they spend some time making Slashcode less of a massive clusterfuck. Slashdot is hands down the slowest, clunkiest, and least user-friendly website that I use on a daily basis.
Re:What it has to do with privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not paranoid, I just dislike the idea of my life being profiled by a private entity without my consent. I'm well aware that store / loyalty cards, CC companies etc do this; I accept that as part of the terms of service. What do I gain from Facebook?
Hanlon's razor (Score:4, Interesting)
You might want to re-think who you want as your friends. If your "friends" are giving your personal information away to an entity who then sells it downstream to anyone who wants it, including most likely the big brother TLA agencies, I'd suggest those people are not actually friends.
Or maybe they are friends, but are not educated in the implications. May I suggest you familiarize yourself with Hanlon's razor before judging you don't know and their worthiness for friendship? I don't know, something to do with social skills, rational thought, humanism, or something.
My friends, somehow, do not do this to me. You need a better class of friends.
Wow, just wow.
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Wow, just wow.
What, exactly, is wrong with expecting your so called "friends" to not betray your trust?
Again, wow, just wow. Ignorance of what you desire is not an indication of betrayal. As I said before, Hanlon's razor, which what separates reasonable expectations and stupidity. It is stupid to take actions carried out of ignorance/innocence and attribute malice or betrayal connotations to it. Yes, it is stupid, regardless of how you want to rationalize it.
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That said, more than once I've had to ask some acquaintances to take down photos of me. I just don't love the idea of there being photos of me all red-faced inebriated being posted on the internet.
When you're goofing around with friends somewhere, that's one thing. Sharing the photographic eviden
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Short of robbing a bank and ending up on the news, you didn't usually have to think about that kind of exposure before facebook.
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See, I used to have a Facebook account. However all I ever ended up doing was confirming the data which was personal by refusing to allow it to be published.
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All of the things you mentioned annoy me too. That's one of the reasons why I have a Facebook account. Since I have an account, I can control the settings. If someone tries to tag me in a picture (and they do!), I get an email with a chance to approve it. I don't approve them, I go delete the tag from the picture. Facebook doesn't know where I live (fake address in a different state). They don't know my phone number. My security settings are pretty locked down and don't allow strangers to message me, etc. If you do this, you are better able to manage what people may post about you on Facebook than you can if you don't even have an account.
^^^ THIS.
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I have every reason to hate users of Facebook who enter information about me. I may not be on Facebook, but I can still be tagged in a photo, have my name used in a "Check in" style post, have my details entered as an invitation to join Facebook (thereby linking my email address to me, the person who submitted the invitation, any picture I am tagged in without my knowledge etc). I'm not paranoid, I just dislike the idea of my life being profiled by a private entity without my consent. I'm well aware that store / loyalty cards, CC companies etc do this; I accept that as part of the terms of service. What do I gain from Facebook?
I wonder what you will do if a friend posts a picture of you on a non-FB page, like a blog or a non-commercial web page. What are you going to do? Or if a newspaper takes a picture on the street and you are in it. What are you going to do?
At the very least, if a friend or acquaintance of yours post/tag a pic of you, you can ask them to undo just that. You cannot do that with other venues, at least not easily and without involving legal action.
I can understand the desire of being a hermit, but to go ban
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To me, the costs out-weigh the benefits. This is basic logic.
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I don't want to be hermit. Go back and redo your reading comprehension classes from grade / primary school. I said I don't want a private company, from which I require no service and gain no remuneration, to profit from my personal data. That is not an alien concept, one quite sufficiently backed up by the widespread concern of identity theft, for one example. To me, the costs out-weigh the benefits. This is basic logic.
Yes, and as you tell me I lack reading comprehension, I remind you of the questions I posted that still remained unanswered.
I wonder what you will do if a friend posts a picture of you on a non-FB page, like a blog or a non-commercial web page. What are you going to do? Or if a newspaper takes a picture on the street and you are in it. What are you going to do?
Yes, I get you. Still, what are you going to do about it? Hate facebook users as you said in the post of yours that I first replied? That's just an asinine response, and that is my point of contention. What's the point of being so aware of privacy concerns if the response you produce not conductive for what you desire? If you are going to be (or claim to be) logical, be all the way.
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Seriously, there's no real reason to hate on Facebook [...]. As for the users, there's no reason to hate on them at all just because they use Facebook.
Oh well, just as there was no reason to hate aol users in the 90ies...
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Just because one uses/used AOL, there was no reason to hate them. That's stereotyping, just like if I said you're an overweight savant with glasses five centimeters thick, who live in their parents' converted basement and owns six hundred Star Wars and Star Trek action figures, just because you commented on Slashdot. Simply not true (I think). Even if it happened to be true in your case, it certainly isn't in mine, so the stereotype is already broken.
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This particular change doesn't seem to significantly change privacy, but...
You just have to be smart with what information you enter, and what you do with it, and there, no risk at all.
No "risk" of what, exactly?
The studies on what you can gather from Facebook data are shocking. Simply based on who you are friends with, researchers have shown they can accurately guess whether you're gay, where your hometown is, what your approximately birthdate is, etc., even if you don't make those facts available on your profile. With an extrapolated hometown and approximate birthdate, they can pretty accurately figure out th
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So what you're saying is that Social Security Numbers should not be treated as a confidential security token, right? Because you can already restrict arbitrary, unknown people from reading your friends list or anything else in your profile by setting the appropriate permissions, and you haven't really mentioned anything else.
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Re:What it has to do with privacy? (Score:5, Funny)
So you admit that you use Facebook?
I also use facebook.
And I also have 2 Macs and 2 Windows PC's on my desk where I run VMs with everything from W98 to 2008 server as well as a couple of variations of linux. I program in a host of languages doing things from websites to industrial control systems to smart phone apps. I use Yahoo messenger, and on occasion use my 3 hotmail accounts. I'll admit that my ICQ profile is probably long gone, and at one stage I did have an AOL account, but moved on to Earthlink.
So has your little, puny AC head exploded yet?
Not a Facebook fan, but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a Facebook fan at all, but if anything it appears to me that the new timeline and accompanying activity view make it easer to hide, delete and change the audience of individual items.
Oh NOES!!!! (Score:2, Redundant)
As a programmer... (Score:5, Funny)
The first thing I noticed in TFS was the unmatched parentheses.
Re:As a programmer... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still waiting for the summary to finish...
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That's what you get for reading TFS.
I think I read the first sentence and the last sentence and completely ignored what came in between them.
Re:Remove social buttons from comments? (Score:5, Informative)
Can, and already did. You can too.
Block them everywhere:
#a(href*=facebook.com/sharer)
#a(href*=plusone.google.com/_/+1)
#a(href*=twitter.com/intent)
or just on Slashdot:
slashdot.org#a(href*=facebook.com/sharer)
slashdot.org#a(href*=plusone.google.com/_/+1)
slashdot.org#a(href*=twitter.com/intent)
Bonus filters, no additional charge:
#a(href*=goat.)
#a(href*=goatse.)
slashdot.org#a(href*=/boredgeek)
slashdot.org#a(href*=/geekatwork)
slashdot.org#a(href*=/goo.gl/)
slashdot.org#a(href*=/is.gd/)
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Where are you adding these entries?
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Firefox, AdBlock Plus filter rules (Ctrl-Shift-F). You should be able to copy them to the clipboard and add them to your filter rules just by hitting Ctrl-V.
Facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook is not critical infrastructure (or even near it); users willingly and knowlingly signed up for what amounts to a toy. A toy with commercial motives.
Re:Facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the way they work, they already have a profile on you even if you dont sign up on their serivce. So many websites add that "useful" Like button, that servers as a tracking trojan, that it's impossible to navigate without being caught and profiled by Facebook. They keep growing a profile on you even if you dont have an account. They'll just tie everything up the day you actually make an account to "check some friend's pictures" or something.
Re:Facebook? (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook is no mere toy. Used properly it is an efficient communications platform. Not perfect by any means, but denying Facebook's strength as a communications platform is really quite ignorant.
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.....ha ha ha ha ha ha
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What communication feature does Facebook have that email/IM does not?
Tehnically: Nothing.
In practice: I don't have to hunt for email addresses or tell my technically clueless friends how to use IM brand X. I just tell them that well talk/message on Facebook and from their perspective, things Just Work.
Presentation Change Only (Score:2)
Facebook is ok on this one, to an extent.
The only thing that I can tell the timeline does is make information on someone's profile page absolutely impossible to find. That should IMPROVE the users' security if nothing else.
You can always change the channel... (Score:1)
This "free" service has a cost and that cost is the value that the company can extract from your information by selling it to whoever is willing to pay for it.
Four-five years ago, the notion that FB was collecting and selling private info was dismissed as conspiracy theory. Today, it causes outrage.
The remedy, as always is to stop using it. Judging by the ever increasing number of users, that's not happening, so the privacy concerns only bother us enough to register the token complaint but not enough to sto
ENSURE (Score:2)
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Webster's Dictionary [merriam-webster.com] disagrees.
Definition of INSURE
transitive verb
1: to provide or obtain insurance on or for
2: to make certain especially by taking necessary measures and precautions
without asking users first (Score:1)
My question (Score:1)
Like button ? facebook what's that ? (Score:2)
A simple solution to this merry-go-round (Score:2)
Give FB users the option of paying 1 dollar per month (okay...99 cents) for the service. Offer premium options.
Lord know they have plenty of well paid staff on board to build the option.
Roll experimental services (that annoy people) out to all non-paying members, explain that they can avoid all such issues by paying the nominal fee. The 12.00 per year will give you some form of SLA and a requirement by FB to conform to some other norm. Paying clients will appreciate the extra voice they have, because they a
Makes life simple (Score:2)
It's a lot easier to see if you left any old messages undeleted.
Of course fb doesn't remove these messages. It just sets visibility = false and never forgets...