Confirmation of a US Government Probe Pushes Facebook's Market Loss To $90 Billion (qz.com) 73
The US Federal Trade Commission has confirmed that it is investigating Facebook over its privacy practices, following recent revelations that data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested and exploited tens of millions of users' data without their permission. From a report: Facebook's stock renewed its downward slide, bringing the company's total loss of market value to around $90 billion since the scandal broke 10 days ago. "The FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook. Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices," said Tom Pahl, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.
No (Score:2, Insightful)
Facebook's made-up "market value" went down. *POTENTIAL* money was lost. No actual money was lost. RIAA math at work again.
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Have FB suddenly changed business model? If not, why the sudden concern?
Re: No (Score:1)
This is news now because Facebook may have violated their published privacy policy after telling the FTC and the regulators in the EU they wouldn't.
At the very least it appears they did no audit or enforcement of restrictions they placed on users of their API.
I hope Facebook had some good hold harmless terms in their agreements with the API users and use them to pass some of any costs along to those developers who abused their authorized access.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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have retained data sets that were supposed to be destroyed
Can you imagine the SIZE of all of those PST files?
(Oh, so it's just me -- nobody's an Exchange/Outlook admin anymore??)
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have retained data sets that were supposed to be destroyed
Can you imagine the SIZE of all of those PST files? (Oh, so it's just me -- nobody's an Exchange/Outlook admin anymore??)
I do. Storage is cheap so we use OST instead PST
PST file sizes? (Score:2)
have retained data sets that were supposed to be destroyed
Can you imagine the SIZE of all of those PST files? (Oh, so it's just me -- nobody's an Exchange/Outlook admin anymore??)
Size of PST files? It's been a while since I last used Outlook, but don't PST files have a limit of 2GB, beyond which they can't grow?
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Yep. For a decade it was always "It's just a private company, bro!" or "You agreed to it in the ToS, if you don't like it just don't use facebook!" until it helped Trump. Then it instantly became the scandal of the century.
Normally this would annoy me, but facebook's getting fucked so I'll overlook it this time. Only worry is this will now leave Google alone in sole, incontestable control of the Big Brother-ing industry.
Did Obama's campaign scrape profiles of 50 million completely unrelated individuals who happened to be friends of people who took an online personality test?
I'll answer for you. No.
The reason you think it's the same is: you're a stupid cunt.
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No one is accusing them of violating them TOS.
You sound smart. Facebook claim Cambridge Analytica violated their TOS.
Now that the propaganda houses are claiming that Trump is terrible because he used this same data channels as Obama, suddenly everyone is upset because MSM tells them to be upset.
'everything that differs from my view is propaganda'
It's actually quite different. You either choose not to see the difference because you're biased, or you're a stupid cunt. Almost certainly both.
Two factors here are that people are really fucking stupid.
It's painfully, painfully true.
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Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but it seems that the Cambridge Analytica mess spilled over and raised more than a dozen eyebrows, and privacy concerns in the UK and here, as well. The authorities have gone into the CA office buildings before any data could be hosed.
The Reg https://theregister.co.uk/ [theregister.co.uk] has described how details and metadata collected would even show how much information, when someone who put FB messenger on an android phone would unwittingly list your phone and text, without you explicitly giving FB this opt-in, simply because your contact had that FB/Android combo.
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Just because the derivatives market was a disaster doesn't mean you make any kind of valid point by comparing something else you despise to it. What's going on with Facebook is entirely different.
The problem with the derivatives market was a common anti-pattern in human behavior: something that works really well for an individual but fails miserably when everyone tries to do it. Companies used derivative contracts as a kind of speculation insurance, allowing hem to invest more aggressively, treating secur
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Facebook's made-up "market value" went down. *POTENTIAL* money was lost. No actual money was lost. RIAA math at work again.
Precisely! How does one do the public valuation of what's simply a glorified website?
It's Back Up (Score:4, Insightful)
There were tons of reports of it tanking again today early this morning. Yet minutes after those reports hit, the stock rallied.
It's basically flat for the day. Google and Twitter are up significantly.
I'd like for nothing more than all 3 to tank and die, but it's not happening unless Congress makes it happen. And Congress regulating them will simple establish them further, as competition will be much harder.
Re: It's Back Up (Score:1)
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Rallied perhaps, by the Zuckmeister himself, as damage control, pending similar investigations in Europe, where privacy is taken very, very seriously, especially when it is not to be monetized.
Full page ads with Mark Z's apologies in the US papers, as well as overseas.
And a poll with the missing caption, as the "cherry on top"
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Any combination of those things are widely lacking in the world of the average Internet user.
I used to think it would be a good thing if everyone used the Internet. I've never missed 1996 as much as I do now, and not just for my hairline.
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#TightenTheTinfoil
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And Congress regulating them will simple establish them further, as competition will be much harder.
You say this as though regulatory lock-in is the only possible result of regulation. Use your imagination a little, instead of just assuming. If congress were to simply implement some limitations on the collection and storage of data it would devastate their business model (except for Twitter, who doesn't seem to have any mechanism for making money) while giving them no advantages over other startups that they don't already have. No lock-in.
If congress were to slap them on the wrist and say that they cou
You say that like it's a bad thing (Score:3)
I'm all for putting a stop to competition in that fast growing field.
Ridiculous valuation (Score:5, Insightful)
How many businesses could lose $100 billion dollars and still be operating?
Obviously the valuation of this sort of thing is greatly overblown and has nothing to do with real world work or returns.
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How many businesses could lose $100 billion dollars and still be operating?
How many businesses have 1/4 of the population of the entire world as their user base?
Don't underestimate the sheer monster that Facebook has become, and based on what we know about how much information they have on us is that value really so surprising?
That's without getting into any discussion about what Sharemarket value actually means for a business (hint: nothing, during the GOM oil spill BP was valued by shareholders as less than the cost of the assets + oil sitting in storage which is absurd for a co
As usuall missleading headlines (Score:4, Informative)
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Yes, it's the stockholders who have lost. From a high near $200 in early Feb to $160 today, they've lost 20%... but only if they bought at the high and sold today. For most people, it's just paper losses (or smaller gains).
just a paper cut (Score:3)
The stockholders would include almost all of the management, most of the employees, some of the contractors, many key venture capital relationships, and god-knows how many potential activist shareholders, plus speculative financial shops that might be substantially leveraged; 10% is then
Boohoo (Score:2)
Why should I ever feel sorry for this company.
Double standards (Score:4, Insightful)
It is too bad they won't go after Equifax to the same degree they are going after Facebook.
Re:Double standards (Score:4, Insightful)
It is too bad they won't go after Equifax to the same degree they are going after Facebook.
If the Trump campaign had some link to Equifax then they, too, would be under the gun.
The ONLY reason Facebook is being trashed is because the Left thinks FB/Zucky helped Trump knowingly or unknowingly. That's it. That's the only reason. The people screaming for investigations had no problem with Democrats using FB data for election demographics purposes, nor did they have any real issues with FB's invasiveness regarding privacy prior other than as a minor side-issue they had to make the right noises about.
I'm happy to see more people becoming aware of the importance of privacy, but the hypocrisy surrounding this shitshow is over 9000.
Strat
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The people screaming for investigations had no problem with Democrats using FB data for election demographics purposes
The people making this claim don't see some very big and critical differences between the two cases, not the least of which involves a lack of foreign 3rd party entities influencing elections in the democrat's case. The only people who think this is about Facebook itself are those who have a partisan axe to grind.
Hint: It wasn't Facebook's headquarters that was raided.
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Yes -- there's no difference between openly using Facebook's own advertising tools to
What surprises me (Score:5, Interesting)
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No one was upset until Trump used the data. Obama was a modern-day genius when he used the data, and thousands of unknown companies having the data was fine. But Trump using it is what caused some people to go bonkers.
Any (New) Bad? (Score:2)
From what (little) I know about this, it sorta seems like CA was the bad actor and maybe FB should sue them for breach of the TOS.
Those data brokers aren't as tied into (Score:2)
Proper evaluation (Score:3, Interesting)
What happens if those overblown tech giants (Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Apple, whatever shit) cease to exist? NOTHING. Some moderate annoyance and shit on the fan for a relatively large group of people. The world moves on, many won't even notice. "Oh dear, we won't get a brand new iAssScratcher this year, what a drama!".
Now, how about John Deere? Market cap 10 times less than the Facepalm, their agricultural machines work probably on half of the Earth's fields. Imagine the consequences of that being vanished.
Or Gazprom, also 10 times less than the bunch of PHP scripts, what happens when there comes no gas anymore, a major fucking blow to the little dream castle of greenpeacers and also huge impact on the whole civilization.
NSA (Score:2)
Quietly acquired by "No Such Agency" exists.
Enjoy the Schadenfreude while it lasts (Score:2)
#deletefacebook worked for me (Score:2)
I just finished deleting my Facebook account. I downloaded their data on me just to look at it, first. Luckily, I never told Facebook very much about me, never installed the app on my phone, rarely logged in, and clear cookies every time I close my browser, so their data on me looks pretty sparse.
I originally created the account because of a scare article suggesting that someone nefarious might create a Facebook account on my behalf and then post bad stuff there. Unlikely, I know, but it seemed a trivial pr
Facebook should never have gone public (Score:2)
They never needed to. They made plenty of money as a private company. They only went public so insiders could make a killing on the early stock trades. Now they're stuck with the gov who's going to make them a public utility. I'm fine with that since I hate Zuk and Facebook.