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Facebook Privacy Software Technology

Facebook's Plan To Merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger Sounds a Privacy Alarm (technologyreview.com) 93

Posted by BeauHD from the heads-up dept.
Facebook's new plan to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger will lead to more data about users being shared between them, a new report warns. The effort to make it easier for people to participate in conversations across its various messaging platforms sounds harmless, but it raises issues about how data will be shared across the platforms, and with third parties. The good news is that the apps will all be required to use end-to-end encryption. MIT Technology Review reports: Facebook says it wants to make it easier for people to communicate across its "ecosystem" of apps. But the real driver here is a commercial one. By making it easier to swap messages, Facebook can mine even more data to target ads with, and come up with more money-spinning services. There's another potential benefit: by integrating its messaging apps more tightly, Facebook can argue it would be harder to spin one or more of them off, as some antitrust campaigners think it should be forced to do.
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Facebook's Plan To Merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger Sounds a Privacy Alarm More

Facebook's Plan To Merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger Sounds a Privacy Alarm

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  • A privacy alarm? On FACEBOOK? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 27, 2019 @03:31PM (#58030858)

    You're using these FB products and you're worried about PRIVACY, like, at all!?!? Hahahahaha, morons. The fuck out of here with this, anyone who gives a fuck wouldn't touch FB with anything but a subpoena.

  • There is another angle... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gosand ( 234100 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @03:33PM (#58030862)

    They can also tap into users that don't use all of those platforms. e.g. I used WA for a few years before FB bought them. I abandoned Instagram several years ago, and have never used FB. BUT - now they will be able to more accurately track me, because they will have access to my WA data in FB. I am sure this will be done in a straight-forward way with an amended TOS that I may or may not ever see.

    Yes, I can see the efficiencies of combining the back-ends from an operational perspective, but that is only a very small piece of the pie. Being able to more completely track people's information and triangulate on them is much more valuable.

    • Re:There is another angle... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RedK ( 112790 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @04:51PM (#58031164)

      It's not like they don't already track you. Even if you don't have a Facebook account, you have a Facebook account. It just doesn't get activated until you actually "sign up". But it's there, collecting data about you and your habits still.

      These "Shadow profiles" already know who you're friends with, when you went out and where you went to eat, who you're dating, probably even your job, your education.

      It's all gathered from your friend's contact lists, posts, pictures.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I'm aware of the shadow profile concept. I simply meant that this would "round out" their tracking so they can get more meat on those they can't directly track.
        I would bet what they know about me isn't very complete. Many of my friends don't use FB, and if they do it doesn't have anything to do with me. I don't go out to eat very often, my friends don't take pics of me and put them online - and if they did, I don't have an account for them to tag.

        It does concern me how willing everyone else seems to be a

    • After the California Privacy Act goes into effect (in 2020), you should be able to get them to delete all that information about you.

  • I guess it would be a concern (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @03:38PM (#58030888)

    if you used any of these. I think I still have a BookFace account. I log into it once in a while to check to make sure my friends aren't dead. Inst and WA? Never signed up for either. F BookFace and it's analytics.

  • What users want this again? And why do I want to be msg'd by some facebook fag when I'm on whatsapp? I don't. I'm on whatsapp for THAT, and only that, functionality. I deleted my facebook account 5 years ago.

    • The advertisers are the paying customers. What you want doesn't matter.
      If a particular surveillance product stops producing quality data (for a low cost of acquisition), it will get merged or even shit-canned.

  • velcro shoes (Score:5)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @03:39PM (#58030892) Homepage Journal

    will lead to more data about users being shared between them

    Somebody believes they aren't doing this with everything already?

    • Have you ever tried to integrate multiple products with different authentication/authorization? It doesn't take zero time. It has to be planned and executed. I never doubted Facebook's intention to do this. Everyone knows they'd want to. But yeah, it does take time to do it as effectively as they would want to.

      • Why do you think they'd bother with authentication/authorization?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Octorian ( 14086 )

        Actually, the different content/data formats of the various apps is going to be a far greater problem. Because of end-to-end encryption, far more of this issue gets pushed down to the client, and cannot be handled seamlessly on the server.

      • They don't need to. I am pretty sure the FB app has access to WhatsApp chats in any case. They are only 'end-to-end' encrypted, not at the actual 'ends'.
    • I agree. That's the first thing I thought upon seeing the headline. "Who thinks they haven't been doing this since they day they bought these companies"? And, "How can I find these people, because I have a bridge to sell them."

  • The privacy alarm isn't sounding (Score:3)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @03:56PM (#58030946)

    It's going from 150 dB to 153 dB. But it was already pretty loud to begin with...

  • Non profit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @03:58PM (#58030958)

    We should be asking that

    1. All the central messenger servers be placed under the rotating (5 year?) control of a non-profit organization such as Mozilla, Apache, or Wikipedia.

    2. All protocols utilize end-to-end encryption.

    3. Protocol must be published as an open standard.

    Users can be free to use any (well behaved) third-party client to connect to those services. The producers of those clients will be strongly encouraged (not to mention incentivized to donate to the organization that is running the central server).

    • 1. All the central messenger servers be placed under the rotating (5 year?) control of a non-profit organization such as Mozilla, Apache, or Wikipedia.

      Why would we do that when we are not tethered to any one of them? That makes no sense, and sounds rather draconian. There are many open messaging protocols at our disposal. Facebook can't cut your wire. Only the ISP can do that. If the internet needs any regulation, the ISP is where to apply it, and there only to make sure access is not restricted.

      • I didnt say to regulate anything! I would want no regulation. I am talking about messaging being interoperable, the same way different vendors sell HDMI cables. HDMI.org isnâ(TM)t run by any government. Unlike HDMI which is just a standard, central servers are needed for an efficent messaging service (the current decentralized models have various issues).

        I don't see why facebook would be opposed to this btw. They can make money on the client installations. The only reason they would oppose this is if

        • HDMI is a closed licensed product. Messaging is not necessarily so, and despite the issues, decentralized is the method that should get the most attention and development. Protocols shouldn't be an issue. We already have universal translators for that.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by at.drinian ( 1180281 )
      Signal [signal.org] fulfills your first, second, and third requirements nicely, although I see why you suggest rotating responsibility. Your fourth requirement, allowing third-party clients, is sort of implicitly allowed but not encouraged, I think.

    • 2. All protocols utilize end-to-end encryption.

      If it goes through a central messaging server, the government will still see who are contacting.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by cosmo42 ( 801561 )
      Check out Matrix. It's growing fast and also has excellent support on bridging existing IM's into it. It's already a better IRC client than any IRC client.

  • Do not want (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I only use WhatsApp because it's not integrated with Facebook. I shut my FB account years ago. Time to look for a WhatsApp replacement..

  • It is toxic and getting more so. Also, you really do NOT need it.

  • Folks, I quit WhatsApp for Telegram when all this was announced. I haven't looked back. Please join me.

    • https://telegram.org/ [telegram.org] has a huge advantage over WhatssApp: your phone number is not shared with all members of a group (I avoid to participate in WhatsApp groups just for this)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cosmo42 ( 801561 )
      Check out Matrix, it does the same as Telegram but is FOSS and distributed also on server side. Telegram is closed and owned by a Russian company. Matrix also supports bridging TG channels to Matrix side quite easily so existing communities can be merged. Telegram is not as evil as WhatsApp or others, but Matrix goes all the way. I closed my telegram clients a couple months ago and haven't looked back since.

  • Is their plan.

    Steal information.

    Eliminate privacy

    Make Zuckerberg rich!

  • A huge mistake (Score:3)

    by ruddk ( 5153113 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @08:36PM (#58031884)

    Some are using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp for different groups of people. Like Facebook are for talking to your grandparents and don't mix them. :)

  • "The good news is that the apps will all be required to use end-to-end encryption. ... By making it easier to swap messages, Facebook can mine even more data to target ads"

    how can it be end-to-end encrypted while allowing mining of data for targetted ads?

  • Whoever you add on Whatsapp will almost immediately show up on your Facebook friend suggestions, it would be extremely stupid of them to spend billions buying Whatsapp and not mine that data. Pretty sure everything you say on Whatsapp is already tracked by Facebook

    • That is confirmed. I only have WA installed on my phone. Just this past week or so I noticed a phenomenon that some of my friends had already noticed (they had FB and Insta). That is, that if some product is mentioned on a phone call (not using whatsapp, just normal dialer), suddenly you start seeing ads for that product in your browser or next time you are on FB. It is totally intercepting your voice and peeling out marketing info and who knows what else.
  • Facebook should learn from the food industry. If every single product Kraft, Unilever, or Nestle owned had their name in bold letters with what the name of the product was underneath it would sound alarm bells. FB's brand obviously is one of mistrust now so by folding them into each other is pure folly.

  • EU (Score:1)

    by Dustie ( 1253268 )
    The EU clearly said WA and FB could not be merged. Interesting what will happen.

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