How Facebook Tried To Defend Its Privacy Policies at CES (ieee.org) 33
Slashdot reader Tekla Perry found some interesting quotes in IEEE Spectrum's "View From the Valley" blog:
Apple, Facebook, and Proctor & Gamble executives faced some tough questions about privacy during a CES panel, and pushback from U.S. FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.
In one exchanged, Facebook's representative argued that Apple's model of adding noise to data to keep it anonymous and avoiding sending too much data to the cloud wouldn't work for Facebook. "If you come to Facebook, you want to share," she said, continuing: "I take issue with the idea that the advertising we serve involves surveilling people.
"We don't do surveillance capitalism, that by definition is surreptitious; we work hard to be transparent."
The Facebook representative argued later that "we provide real value to people in terms of the advertising we deliver and we do it in a privacy protected way."
But Apple's senior director of global privacy had already said "I don't think we can ever say we are doing enough." Despite the fact that Apple has "teams" of privacy lawyers as well as privacy engineers who consider every product, "We always have to be pushing the envelope, and figure out how to put the consumer in control of their data."
"Everything that she said about Apple holds for Facebook," replied the Facebook representative. "But the question is what do people expect..."
And at one point, Proctor & Gamble's representative even said "We collect the data to serve people."
In one exchanged, Facebook's representative argued that Apple's model of adding noise to data to keep it anonymous and avoiding sending too much data to the cloud wouldn't work for Facebook. "If you come to Facebook, you want to share," she said, continuing: "I take issue with the idea that the advertising we serve involves surveilling people.
"We don't do surveillance capitalism, that by definition is surreptitious; we work hard to be transparent."
The Facebook representative argued later that "we provide real value to people in terms of the advertising we deliver and we do it in a privacy protected way."
But Apple's senior director of global privacy had already said "I don't think we can ever say we are doing enough." Despite the fact that Apple has "teams" of privacy lawyers as well as privacy engineers who consider every product, "We always have to be pushing the envelope, and figure out how to put the consumer in control of their data."
"Everything that she said about Apple holds for Facebook," replied the Facebook representative. "But the question is what do people expect..."
And at one point, Proctor & Gamble's representative even said "We collect the data to serve people."
This kind of people... (Score:5, Insightful)
They would sell their mothers data for a dime.
Hell they probably did it and don't even know
Re:This kind of people... (Score:4, Informative)
Facebook and privacy are mutually exclusive entities.
Proctor and Gamble (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Proctor and Gamble (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Or other proctology items.
Re: (Score:2)
They probably sell your data to the chinese.
There's this huge underground market of data that everyone sells your data to and nobody actually know or care who will buy it.
And it's not just big corps, anyone that offer you something for "free" or even "a chance to win something" and require your name etc is most likely selling your data.
Re: Damn commies! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the chinese have a lot of power, money and have a tendency to not respect things such as human rights so it's pretty obvious they will do it.
Of course they're not even close to being the only ones buying data for malicious purposes on this terrible market.
Re: (Score:2)
If you read only what's convenient for you from the posts, your arguments get quite weak like this.
If you did you probably would get that for me, this market should not even exist.
There should be a shitton of "FBI OPEN UP" until it's gone.
Re: (Score:2)
Who else are the sweet, innocent US intelligence agencies supposed to buy it from?
To Serve Man (Score:3, Funny)
Re:To Serve Man (Score:4, Interesting)
"We collect the data to serve people."
I came here to say this. They're serving their marketing-people, their promotions/advertising-people, and their customer-people.
When it comes to Facebook's users, Procter & Gambler's users, they are the product being served....
I remain suspicious, but Apple is the only company with whom I feel I can gain trust with regard to policy. I look forward to the day Apple supports all the sane privacy /laws/.
Re:To Serve Man (Score:5, Informative)
I wondered about what's up with P&G, and it appears they are in a whole new category of douchebaggyness. As a major advertiser, they are trying to force platforms like FB and YT to give up more of their user's data:
In a speech at an industry conference Thursday, P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard blasted the digital media industry for lack of transparency, fraud, privacy breaches and a proliferation of violent and harmful content placed next to ads. He said his company, which spends billions of dollars on marketing products from paper towels to shampoo every year, would move its money to services that can guarantee effectiveness, are completely free of offensive content and are more willing to share consumer data with advertisers.
And then there's this little gem:
He wants the ad platforms to use a standardized way of identifying individual consumers, so that advertisers can track people as they move across the internet and make sure they’re not repeatedly hitting a consumer with the same ad. But as privacy becomes a bigger concern for people and governments, Facebook, Google and others have used it as a reason to make it even more difficult to do that kind of tracking. The added privacy makes it harder for advertisers to send pinpointed messages to people, increasing their costs and annoying consumers who get hit with the same ad over and over again.
So besides pushing for a standardized way to track users across sites, they are also a major force in the push to get "offensive" content removed from YT, which includes a hell of a lot more than just terrorism. (both quotes taken from here [bloomberg.com])
The Outer Limits (Score:3)
Thanks for the practically meaningless quotes with no context. That aside, you know you are in a strange place when Apple is the white knight. How anyone can honestly work at Facebook or Google and not be ashamed is amazing. At least Apple seems like they are trying to do the right thing with data and privacy, even though their lock-in and pricing are bad, you canâ(TM)t really say others are much better.
It is hilarious or perhaps sad that Googles motto was do no evil and now they are the epitome of evil in technology and privacy. Anything they even brush against is an absolute privacy hell.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the practically meaningless quotes with no context. That aside, you know you are in a strange place when Apple is the white knight. How anyone can honestly work at Facebook or Google and not be ashamed is amazing. At least Apple seems like they are trying to do the right thing with data and privacy, even though their lock-in and pricing are bad....
The lesser evil corollary...when faced with selecting from two (or more) immoral options, the one which is least immoral is preferred.
Is this what past election cycle choices have conditioned us for?
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the practically meaningless quotes with no context.
Obscure maybe, but not meaningless at all to anybody savvy enough (old enough?) to get the reference. "It's a cookbook!" was the first thing I thought when I read that fatuous "We collect the data to serve people." quote.
The reference is a Twilight Zone episode, not Outer Limits. Titled "To Serve Man". About giant aliens who come to Earth offering advanced technology and nullifying all our nuclear weapons and promising a golden age of peace. Invited shiploads of people to go back to visit the aliens' hom
Don't make me laugh (Score:2)
Seeing the words "Facebook", "defending" and "privacy" in the same sentance did bring a smile to my face. I shan't bother to read the article as they've proved time and again they simply don't care. In fact Facebook don't want privacy, they simply want to offer the illusion of privacy for 99% of their users so their users don't stop using the system. Facebook's whole business model is built around the fact that privacy is an illusion, they need to see as much info as possible and ensure they can link it all
A lawyer, a marketer, and a lobbyist walk into a (Score:2)
No, it's not, you fucking retard.
I want to rail against FB & Google (Score:2)
I deeply dislike and distrust Facebook, Google and their lot. They smile and gently pull value from those who use their products. Users become the product.
But...
I have a friend who uses his credit card for *everything* - no purchase too small. I ask him why and he says 'I get frequent flyer miles'. I say 'but you become a tool for others and lose all privacy'. And he says 'but I get frequent flyer miles'.
I have come to believe that the average person simply does not have a grasp of the value they give away.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing with CC purchases is that they get some information on you, but it is low quality information.
There is no reason to just wave your hands and assume it invades your privacy as much as simply installing an app that asks for permissions. Or paying with some sort of Borg-pay service, where instead of just a recipient and amount, everything gets recorded, even your route walking through the store.
If using a CC is the same type of risk, you'd want to establish that first.
Re: (Score:2)
Since there's no market where one can volunteer to sell his private data, the fact that some companies will make a profit on it is irrelevant.
I say "they trust me" (Score:1)
I say "they trust me" ... ... ... ... ... ...
You say "dumb fucks"
they trust me
(Audience shouts... dumb fucks)
I can't hear you...
they trust me...
(Audience... DUMB FUCKS)
louder..
(Audience DDUUMMBB FFUUCCKKSS)
That's it..
they trust me.. ...
(Audience DDUUMMBB FFUUCCKKSS)
they trust meh..
(Audience DDUUMBMBB FFUUCCKKSSS)
they trust me they trust me they trust me they trust me they trust me
(Audience DDUUMMBB FFUUCCKKSS DDUUMMBB FFUUCCKKSS DDUUMMBB FFUUCCKKSS DDUUMMBB FFUUCCKKSS DDUUMMBB FFUUCCKKSS)
"If you come to Facebook, you want to share," (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you come to Facebook, you want to share," she said,
But I DON'T "come to Facebook", I DON'T "want to share", and get AWAY from me. I *DON'T* want to have an "invisible profile" so that I can somehow easily use it later or so that you can use it NOW. I don't want to have ANYTHING to do with you, but somehow I think the feeling is NOT quite mutual.
I suspect that Crazy Girlfriend (@Crazy_StalkerGF) | Twitter was your alpha account.
The Facebook narrative (Score:5, Interesting)
The narrative that Facebook and Google keep presenting - probably because they actually believe it - has a few falsehoods at its core:
1. "If you come to Facebook, you want to share". Facebook et al happily confuse people desire the communicate information with their friends, and the metadata that process generates which Facebook shares with others. People may want to share a post, sure, but they don't realize their data is used to analyze their sentiment and intelligence (words used), sleeping pattern (times posted), psychological profile (see Cambridge Analytica), and so forth. This metadata is the 'digital exhaust' that Shoshana Zuboff talks about when she describes what surveillance capitalism is built upon. So ignoring that aspect means the Facebook employee doesn't understand what surveillance capitalism is at best.
2. "It's about advertising". As Cambridge Analytica and the numerous other data brokers that scooped up Facebook data have shown, the Facebook profiles are used by governments, insurers, banks, employers, etc. Now Facebook et al. try to hide behind their good intentions - that they don't generate profiles for those purposes. But in practice all this data is oozing out [brave.com] of these companies, and people are right to be worried about the lack of responsibility here. You could argue that the business model financing Silicon Valley is not advertising, but the democratization of the background check.
Now I don't believe any of the Facebook employees are evil. Over the past decade the big trick that Facebook pulled was to get people to suspend their critical thinking and believe that it's just about "connecting people". What Facebook is selling is not just data, it's a narrative people (investors, employees, the general public) can believe in. This narrative is their first line of defense against scrutiny. Reality is coarse, however, and with each scandal the veneer wears down further.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
- Upton Sinclair
They are 100% transparent about being dicks (Score:1)
If you come to Facebook, you want to share (Score:2)
And how about that little tracker stuck on pages that are NOT facebook ?, If I go to a website that is NOT facebook I sure as hell never intended to share that with facebook.
Bottom line, ALL facebook is intruded in is keeping the cash rolling in and they will do anything to ensure that.