Is Cambtidge Analytica going to be called before Congress?
4
It's pretty simple. Just assume that anything you put out on Facebook will one day end up on the front page of this newspaper.
4
The next expose should concern privacy concerns related to tracking enabled by Google accounts that students, teachers, and professors are provided by their schools, colleges, and universities -- courtesy of Google Apps for Education. Forced to communicate with a .edu mail account provided by Google, we are ensnared in a web of products capable of collecting our data, which presumably is not only sold to third parties but also is available to school administrators via Google Administrative Suite.
Academic readers might perform the following experiment, suggested by another NYT article: Visit http://www.google.com/history or otherwise navigate to the “My Activity” section of your school/university account and, then, to “Activity Controls.” There you will see all activity (YouTube searches, YouTube watches, etc) trackable via your Google Suite of products collected in a single place. By default, one of my university accounts had all of the tracking activity “paused" but another had the defaults set to require affirmatively OPTING OUT of certain tracking. If this weren't sufficient to evoke fears of an education sector Big Brother, one also finds in the “My Activity” section this chilling statement from Google:
“Activity may be saved from another account if you use a shared device or sign in with multiple accounts. Learn more at support.google.com.”
That is, apparently, activity from your personal Google account may be saved to your educational (or work) Google account. Scary.
5
There's nothing new or surprising here. This has been going on for the last decade. The ACLU released a prescient video highlighting the data and privacy risks back in 2004. It's worth reviewing: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/aclus-pizza-video-10-years-...
2
Too bad Wikileaks is a sham -- if the data collected by Facebook and Google on members of Congress was dumped into public view, our duly elected representatives might be motivated to do more than spend a few hours bantering with Zuckerberg.
3
Facebook has invested billions in server farms to provide a web page that allows users to spend countless hours posting their personal information and photos to all their Facebook "friends".
How do people imagine Facebook can make money from providing this service for free?
4
“And for the first time, many privacy experts think internet users will be more willing to put up with a little more inconvenience in return for a lot more privacy.”
A common misconception is that users click through the boilerplate agreements because they are too long and legalistic to wade through, and that simpler more transparent disclosures are the answer. Simple disclosures are not the answer, because people acting on impulse, as the vast majority of those downloading apps are, ‘want it now’ and are in no state of mind to consider the consequences of what they are doing. Refusing to click ‘yes, I agree’ means no app. How many people will have the discipline and judgment to just say no to the use of their private data when it means they can't have something they want right now, like a restaurant app when they're hungry? Very few.
3
Very good points. There are ways to address those problems but it's unlikely they will be enforced.
In Agile methodology there is the concept of a minimum viable product. That is a version of the product that provide the essential functionalities the user expect from it, nothing more. One way would be define what are the core modules in Facebook that people want the most, then, when users sign up, they only have to consent with terms of services and data privacy policies related to those core modules. The first time you use a new feature, you are prompted for a new set of terms to consent. This granular/modular approach would also solve the issue of mobile apps asking to access your pictures, location, contact details, ... when such resources are not needed for routine use of the app. People should be able to clear all given consents in one go and re-enable one by one.
Regarding the simplification of the data policies, I think the industry should come up with a more direct, transparent visual representation of the data usage. For instance one big diagram that shows which piece of data are collected, when, for which reason, stored for how long and share with whom. Alternatively a standard tabular format would be good as well. So before you sign up or enable a new module, you can have this very immediate and clear overview of the data collection process. I'm certain such format would be much more accessible to all users than scattering the information in obfuscated prose.
3
Which is why the "opt-out/opt in" decision has to happen when a person first signs up for Facebook, or logs on to Google for the first time. These platforms need to state, up front, and in plain, simple language: "WE WILL HARVEST DATA ABOUT YOU, YOUR LOCATION, YOUR CONTACTS, YOUR PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS AND SEARCHES, AND YOUR BROWSING AND BUYING HABITS, AND SELL THAT INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES.
3
I find it shockingly interesting how little the Free Software Foundation or Dr Richard Stallman have been brought up or mentioned at all throughout this entire Facebook scandal? There are millions of dollars and thousands of hours being poured into an actual tech movement that has been going on longer than Apple has even existed, longer than the term Microsoft has even existed. My friends and fellow geeks have been aware of the compromises to our freedom that Facebook and everyone else has to offer, and just how Facebook does what it does has been explicitly detailed by us geeks and other members of the FSF since the day it came out, but there is radio silence about us. Possibly the single largest player actually combatting online privacy and not one single word in the Times or elsewhere. We just had a huge Libre conference, too, so this would be a perfect time to bring up privacy’s greatest supporter, but oddly enough it is nowhere to be found. Equivalently, the FSF is about 40 years ahead of social movements like MeToo etc etc but in elite owned publications it will get very little attention. Free software is the only right software!
6
I too was one of the majority to shrug off concerns about data security until the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. Once I learned how the data was used and weaponized it became clear as a bell we were all being played. Facebook had been a fun place to keep tabs on family and friends but during the last US election cycle there was a huge change in the newsfeed and so much disinformation and conspiracy stories and memes, it felt like Facebook became hijacked.
The Cambridge Analytica revelations seemed to be an aha moment for me and I saw how we have all been played and manipulated. I joined the #DeleteFacebook movement and permanently deleted my Facebook account.
Until Facebook stops or sharply restricts its developer tools to access personal data and cleans up its advertising discriminatory tactics I will stay away.
I’ve been Facebook free for over three weeks and I actually don’t miss it.
2
Eye opening. Behold the power of social media and it's impact globally. Public is public, if it's posted its put there, can be used, respected or twisted depending on the collector of what you share, forever. Privacy? In today's world of everyone has a camera and selling shock videos to the highest bidder, money and power trump. No pun intended at potus. I learned about this article on my teenage son's Facebook page. SMH And for those who are naive enough to think that your data and privacy is safe, open your eyes. Today a hacker gets put into prison for stealing identities, while the government gathers info wherever or whoever it can, just because it can, and does without limits of law efficient enough to keep up with the age of technology as it evolves past the replacement of humans with machines. For the people by the people? Really? Not anymore.
1
Meanwhile, Ghostery informs me that on this page alone, the NYT has set 14 tracking cookies. And yes, Facebook, Google, and Amazon are among these little darlings who will follow you all over the Internet when you leave here.
To be a reliable source of reporting on this subject, shouldn't the NYT divest itself of this whole operational scheme? Or is this an exercise in irony?
13
Great point! You’re absolutely right, but at least the NYT and others do not sell your information. That’s the biggest thing right now, if our information isn’t getting sold, it isn’t being passed around. It’s not the best situation but at the very least you’re not being exploited by the NYT and other sites offending ads as much as you are social media.
Good thinking though, keep up the good work!
1
The Facebook fiasco is turning over a rock to find it rife with creepy-crawlers. And Zuckerberg is the latest iteration of Peter Pan, once a pejorative reference to a guy who doesn't act his age and thinks bulk sex is a mark of youth.
Times tech writer Brian X. Chen just reported on what he found when he peeked at what Facebook had on him. His headline ends in "Yikes!" Because I've never gone near Facebook (old dog new tricks) I was What Me Worry? about my data privacy.
Yikes is right.
Facebook isn't social media. It's STASSI, the notorious East German spy agency (where Putin cut his teeth as a rookie spook) that had an enormous appetite for data collected in dossiers kept on every East German. STASSI was the alpha dog of Soviet-era spy agencies with the then KGB a distant second. Facebook on the other hand stands alone, easily surpassing STASSI at the height of its oppressive enforcement of political conformity and submission.
Recent disclosures of how Facebook slices and dices personal data for commercial sale is horrific, twice so in a democracy. But the part that rated full gobstruck is the (I hope) feigned naivete of Facebook's digital demigods.
These guys (sorry Ms. Sandberg) built the democracy doomsday machine and they're pleading non compos mentis about stolen data used by foreign agents doing dirty tricks to sabotage another country, which Zuckerberg is a citizen of?
Is there also a virtual bridge in Brooklyn Zuckerberg is selling with apology to follow?
11
When is Cambridge Analytica being called to repent and share the files they NEVER deleted.?????
5
Personally, I want my profile data stolen so that advertisers know exactly what they’re targeting with me. I’m an old cynical white man who says no to everything, especially that that pops up in my face on a computer screen. Knowing that hopefully they’ll stop doing it.
1
Food for thought:
If Facebook & Cambridge Analytica collected & misused personal data (and they did), remember the other enterprising actors hoovering up the facts of your personal life.
FB is taking the heat this week, but when will Congress summon testimony from:
- LinkedIn/Microsoft/Bing/Windows;
- Google/Picasa/GoogleMaps/Flights/Chrome;
- Amazon/Alexa/Video;
- Apple/Siri/iTunes/Safari...?
All those “private” search terms...all those location-aware app’s and IP addresses...all those self-descriptive actions linked/cross-linked by your email address(es) and phone number and—yes—your SSS #. Tantalizing. Valuable.
Or do we think only FB plays fast and loose with our facts and our life?
Time to review a whole lotta’ User Agreements, it seems.
8
@JS
I remember a news report awhile back about Samsung TVs accidently eavesdropping on people because of a voice command glitch. When I was in China a few years back I remember a low level government official warning me not to say anything I didn't want the Public Security Bureau to hear when I had my cellphone with me. I was skeptical they'd bug me with my own phone. Then a staffer at the British Embassy in Beijing told me to leave my phone behind if I wanted to speak to him. The NYTimes had a feature about NSC officials placing tape over their laptop camera lens to block being watched. They said they did it because they saw tech titans do it.
Paranoid? Apparently not that hard to hack a cellphone into a listening device. Even easier with any of the proliferating voice response tech like Alexia, Siri, google etc. If a device can hear you ask a question and respond, a human can monitor everything you say. I'm amazed at how quickly people have incorporated interactive devices like Alexia without a second thought. Of course none of us have anything to hide, right? So why worry?
Post Trump, Cambridge Analytica and 87 million profiles you can buy from Facebook, it isn't paranoia anymore. Remember the frogs in a pan of water that's being slowly heated? We're now near boiling point.
3
Sociopathic Media
Here’s the grilling that Mr Zuckerberg must surely be glad to have avoided:
Senator:
Facebook records every click, every like, what someone reads and for how long. It does that on your site, and on many other sites. Facebook knows where you’ve visited, and frequently with whom you’ve been conversing. And all of this is used for predictive analytics and comparison to others. In some sense, Facebook knows you better than your psychiatrist or maybe even yourself.
Now, if somebody tells you “I am your trustworthy friend. Tell me all of your intimate confidences, and I will use what you’ve told me to help other people get you to do things that may not be in your interest” would you confide in them? Or would you confide in a psychiatrist who periodically tries to sell you Miami timeshares based on what he knows about you?
Mr Zuckerberg:
I take issue with your premise. We are dedicated to protecting the privacy of our members.
Senator:
How can that be when you sell access to a customer based on surveillance?
You’d justifiable call that fake friend and unethical psychiatrist sociopaths. Shouldn’t we be calling Facebook sociopathic media?
8
Lax privacy rules are not the problem. Rather, the problem is that people buy the snake oil that the internet can ever be made secure and private. Hmmm, maybe I should switch metaphors and say, given the collective rather than individual effects of the internet, lax privacy rules are not the problem. Rather, the problem is that people drink the Kool-Aid that the internet can ever be made secure and private. On further reflection, I think a more direct, compound metaphor might be most appropriate: lax privacy rules are not the problem. Rather, the problem is that people ignore the fact that on the internet they are primarily meat in a butcher shop, even as they drink the Kool-Aid that the internet can ever be made secure and private.
Meanwhile, we go nuts because the N.S.A., which has some measure of accountability (albeit indirect) to all Americans, surreptitiously collects a tiny fraction of the information we voluntarily turn over to profit-making corporations which have absolutely no measure of accountability to all Americans.
P.S. For those too young to remember and wonder why the reference to Kool-Aid, look up the Jonestown massacre.
7
Whatever changes are made to facilitate new standards of privacy, a requirement must be that the default is full personal privacy. There may be cases where a person is willing to share more. In that case an explicit setting must be made which is clearly defined.
The enforcement mechanism for this must include the exclusion of private arbitration from the terms and conditions.
8
When Facebook was becoming popular I was dealing with unwanted attention from an office co-worker. He spent a lot of time trying to research everything he could about me and my family and I never did set up a Facebook account.
I'm curious now what is available on Facebook covering me, knowing siblings, etc have had active accounts. I don't think I'll check though.
Don't worry. In two months you'll forget all about this, and go back to sharing which-celebrity-shares-your-personality quizzes and geo-tagged vacation photos on Facebook. Where's the harm in it, says you? The truth is that 99% of you, including the author of this article, don't understand why Facebook data collection is so dangerous to you.
12
Oh please
Not just "Internet Experts" !
The entire European Union. But it is "not invented here", plus campaign contributions from Silicon Valley.
Google is one of the top 10 donors, 2016, Campaign Committee & Leadership PAC Combined, of Charles E Schumer (D), of NY, Democratic Leader of the US Senate
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors?cid=N000010...
Alphabet Inc is the corporate name of Google
4
I'd like to know who this paper shares my (our) data with? Doubt if we'll be seeing anything about this anytime soon or ever. Remember we PAY for subscriptions. Then they sell our information to who knows for whatever purpose. Where's my cut or subscription reduction?
13
The NYT wouldn’t be able to make any money from its subscribers, but great thinking! It is true they collect superfluous information about us but with features like being able to enter your own name and location every time you comment means they don’t gain really from your subscription. I do data stuff and it’s kind of like you’re either in the business or you’re not. Most subscription based services like the NYT try to focus on servicing subscriptions rather than selling them. It does happen, especially with anything streaming but not really newspapers, at least in this way.
My minor worry about data privacy used to be a running joke: what if someone were tracking all of the strange medical symptoms that I would research while watching a House episode on TV? What if they thought I had sarcoidosis or compartment syndrome or scurvy from googling the symptoms to try to beat Dr. House to a diagnosis?
It's a lot more serious today. And it's NOT just the Facebooks of the world. Today, in my inbox, was an email from the New York Times listing how many articles I've read this year, and the names of the reporter and columnist I read most often. Did The Times think I would appreciate that, this week of all weeks? Since it's clearly not private anymore - I'm just going to bite the bullet and shout it out to the commenting world: my most oft-read reporter is the guy who apparently compiles the Daily Update, and my fave columnist is Gail Collins!
6
I download my facebook data today. I have never posted anything on facebook, never 'liked' anything or anyone, never 'signed on' using facebook; nevertheless, more than 100 companies have 'scraped' my profile. Including this newspaper.
13
What a sorry state of affairs - the non-elected Eurocrats in Brussels are doing a much better job protecting the privacy rights of their (EU) citizens than our elected representatives (Senate and Executive included!). Where is our right that sharing information with FB, Google & Co. requires the user to agree to the data slurp (opt-in), rather than having to find and wrestle one's way through umpteen submenus in Settings to opt-out? Ladies and Gentlemen walking the halls of Congress: Represent already! And I mean us, not Zuckerberg and Co. Pass a privacy act, and quick - November is coming, and primaries are around the corner!
12
Pete: zuck's softball game with congress made it very clear who congress "represents" and is is not we the people.
5
Soon FANG will have enough data on us to replicate us in a digital world 2.0.
Then we will have to worry about AI replacing BOTH our jobs.
1
MZ has been a very naughty, greedy boy and our government has enabled him for many years.
But this, this is really the problem. NO REGULATION!
Blaming ignorant victims is useless. Put the blame where it properly belongs.
7
Why the surprise. Facebook is 'free'. Yet they are a multi-billion dollar company. How does that happen? Because if it's free, you're the product. Nothing will change unless you refuse to be the product. Cancel that account - it's a time waster anyway. Find some real friends, the ones you can actually visit, take a walk with, go to lunch with. You know, real live friends.
6
"I'll get back to you on that" is geek-speak for "are you kidding, I'll never answer that." I'm glad people are waking up to just how arrogant the tech world is and how slimy the marketing world is. When will we stop rewarding people who learned the word "mine" but never learned its limits?
5
Apparently no one in Congress knows how to use Facebook. Did any of these folks do research on how the platform works? Can I get up and grill Zuck because I could do a way better job.
6
Oh they know how to use favebook. The hearings were kabuki theater.
4
Yup. Soon they’ll get the info from ancestor DNA companies.
6
Events have consequences. This is the appropriate result of recent events, Facebook and Russia.
Security pros must be careful, however. They know that security is a technical domain dependent on human behavior and habits. They're tempted to demand that people adapt to technology. That won't work, but it's often where we end up.
If they address conditions that promote or undermine user agency, then we'll get somewhere. Remember, when Zuckerberg and other tech titans wax about AI, they only describe benefits. But for AI to predict your wants it needs reams of personal data. That also, conveniently, provides Facebook with massive advertising advantages.
To obtain a secure web, we need to consider the whole picture.
3
There are different kinds of privacy violation from peeping in your windows to recording everything you say and lots of what you do using the mike and camera perpetually recording in your home computer, or using your always-on phone, which has geolocation capability. and following you around the internet. Peeping in your window is illegal, the rest is normal. People are waking up to what can be learned from their data and why its worth piles of money, more than free stuff like a free Facebook account. We are social animals that can be influenced socially by advertising and political advertising to buy or not buy and like/not like or even hate. Relax, you have nothing to hide. So what? The idea is to influence you. Do you choose to make information on your internet behavior available to use and/or sell? You have no choice. Only legislation will give you a choice. It matters.
4
Privacy experts are like stock analysts and brokers - they always "get it right" after the event!
1
I think you are wrong here. They have been warning but we never heeded those warnings. Same thing with the environment too.
15
As the family geek, the rest of my family was always surprised at my FB account that simply had a single entry pointing to a location outside of FB to contact me. When they asked why, my answer, for many years, has simply been "I'm uncomfortable with Facebook's privacy policies and security." This inevitably led to odd looks, as though I were the family loon. Right now, I don't feel so loony...
7
When FB complies with the GDPR will US citizens be allowed to designate themselves as "Europeans"? Wouldn't a US citizen in Europe be protected under GDPR? Likewise, just because a European is visiting, living or transiting the USA wouldn't they have an expectation of its continue protection? What about dual citizens? Just how will FB determine whose data they can abuse?
7
GDPR, after it comes into effect May 25, applies to EU citizens wherever they do business. US citizens doing business in the EU will, by proxy, be covered by GDPR protections. Last week Zuckerberg said that they will implement GDPR protections for US Facebook users. During his 'visit' to Congress, he recanted on this, saying 'it's not necessary'. FB has already put in place a GDPR-required tool that works for all FB users (showing all data they have on a user). I requested mine and was troubled by all my contacts' phone numbers being there. EU already has a 'right to be forgotten' in place. GDPR strengthens that. Watching this closely, because I want my FB information expunged and I am a US citizen. (I am up to my elbows in GDPR at the moment.
5
Republican members of Congress seemed more concerned about how FaceBook treated two pro-Trump posters than the larger privacy issues.
8
Forget Facebook, hearings, Zuckerberg, Cambridge Analytica, and marketing hype phrased as promises. These are functionally, even if not intentionally, nothing but a smokescreen for the underlying issue: the internet cannot be made private, honest, and secure. Unless and until people are willing to accept the implications of that reality, all else is merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
It would be nice to see more articles, Op-Eds, comments, and public leadership about how our society might begin going about unwinding from the internet, starting not necessarily with personal privacy issues but the more immediate and serious problem of our government, military, and intelligence having allowed themselves to become dangerously vulnerable, having now drunk the Kool-Aid of interconnected electronic efficiency as safely secure.
The acknowledgement of Russia jamming of our drones is just the tip of the iceberg. Underlying that are efforts to not merely interfere but to appropriate our command and control networks, including nukes. And that doesn't even get into the issue of what software has been secretly embedded in all our chips made in China.
Though optimistic about life in general, as I watch everyone read about the Facebook hearings on Facebook, I am not holding my breath that self-deluding addiction to the internet will be fundamentally unraveled, before a major security breach occurs, such as an armed drone directed at Congress or the Superbowl.
14
To those commenting with genuine, understandable, and justified anguish at the difficulty of personally getting off the internet in today's world, I would simply say two things:
1/ You're absolutely right.
2/ There's no free lunch.
Cambridge Analytica, Trump, Facebook, etc. are not so much causes of our current level of social and political dysfunction but, rather, what you get, when you are willing to trade long-term and fundamental interests for convenience, when you are willing to accept entertainment as news.
For those too young to personally remember, check out how many people died fighting for civil rights and against the Viet Nam War. Evers, Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner, Kent State, Jackson State: the list could fill a hundred comments. And, while you're at it, don't expect entrenched institutions to provide "safe spaces" while protecting you from "microagressions", as you seek to make fundamental change challenging the distribution of power. Nope, there aint no free lunch!
7
The internet is a net benefit. A black and white response that sees it as either inherently good or evil, however, is maladaptive. Our society's task is to use both traditional and new governance tools, and listen and learn, to make the internet fit humanity, not the other way around. Facebook isn't just a symptom, it's a vector, like a bacteria that, in spreading, can promote health or cause disease. We need to develop immunity, by developing mechanisms that attack and resist the negative stuff.
1
Despite Russia's interference in the 2016 election, there hasn't been much concern expressed about all the votes that will be cast and counted by computer, with no audit trail, in 2018. (To the contrary, this will happen in more jurisdictions in 2018 than in 2016.) If people don't care that their votes can be altered, why should we expect them to worry about what our made-in-China computer chips might be capable of doing?
What is lost in the outrage about Cambridge Analytica is that there really is no way, as it stands now, to survive in 2018 without sacrificing your privacy. Yes, you could probably avoid Facebook, but what about Linkedin if you are a job-seeker? While there might be some who get jobs through it, for the most part it is a marketing tool. And your data is no safer there than at any other tech company. And that goes for all the other sites like Zip Recruiter etc. And if your interview is on Skype, it can be recorded. So we are all forced to feed this privacy-stealing beast not because it benefits us, but because it makes it easier for employers to exclude us from consideration. What is needed in this country is much broader legislation that addresses the fundamental problems Americans face when big data is used as a weapon against its citizens.
20
How many people will actually care enough to do something about it or stop using these types of services?
6
All of the attention on Facebook, Google, etc. is deserved. But let me point out there is much more.
Every time you make a purchase using a credit card (or other identifier), the store can (and generally does) retain a record. They can sell or give these records to anyone they want (and those parties can do whatever *they* want).
It is possible to reconstruct a pretty complete picture of your life from that.
Also current internet protocols allow sites you visit to get a great deal of information from your browser ("browser fingerprinting").
12
It's also infuriating that unless you go to the trouble of "rooting" your smartphone, you're stuck with a bunch of pre-installed apps that invariably "need" access to your contacts, text messages, photos, etc. And why bother getting rid of those apps, when virtually any additional app you might want to download to enhance your phone's functionality will have the same voracious "need" to access your personal data?
People's data should be considered their property, and anyone who uses it not only should obtain consent (and not as a requirement for using a service or otherwise doing business) but should have to pay them a nontrivial fee for it. And that actually will happen...when?
7
Yeah, people should be able to manage (sell) their own data. It'd be a way for folks to get a little something back at the end of the day.
In any case, when social media began to emerge, it seemed pretty obvious that it was the beginning of the surveillance state. Read 1984 and Brave New World along with PKD during the mid- eighties when I was a kid. What I find so odd is the conversation is swinging back to the idea that maybe a degree of privacy is important. Too late.
Our society is based on the premise that companies create jobs, therefore they can do anything they want. That is why putting your phone number on a do not call list is useless, why agreeing to arbitration is the only way to interact with companies. It is all about the almighty buck. But, it is always told that this "benefits" the customer.
7
I share the outrage about inadequate privacy protections on Facebook and elsewhere. It's one of the reasons that I try not to use any social media.
What I don't understand is why there is not more outrage--and criminal prosecution or added federal regulation--directed toward Cambridge Analytica and its kind. After all, they are the ones who stole the data AND intentionally used it to disrupt the election and manipulate the electorate to benefit the right-wing hooligans who are currently undermining the American democratic experiment.
If someone breaks into my house more easily because I forgot to lock all my windows, why would I be subjected to outrage about my thoughtlessness while the thief is neither pursued nor punished?
18
I would go further. I am not convinced that Facebook deserves all the outrage that is now heaped on it. Yes, they were careless and too trusting, and their platform (like the internet as a whole) is easily abused by bad actors. But teh real evil happened elsewhere - in Cambridge Analytica, in the Trump campaign and the US election machine. If they hadn't gotten the data from Facebook, other gigantic datasets are readily available - others mentioned credit card companies, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon. The era of Big Data is here, and it isn't Facebooks fault. They get roasted because they are big, in everybody's life, and rich. People like to see the mighty fall, and there will be a lot of money paid out. But it wil not revent future Cambridge Analytica scandals.
1
I have long said that in 50 years we will look back upon this time as the Golden Age of our Innocence with the Digital Era. Without caution, we all rushed to jump on the bandwagon to digitize all aspects of our life. Without realizing, global connectivity is our greatest technological feat and it is our greatest vulnerability— in all aspects of our life, business, and government. We are presently on the verge of developing our immune system with technology.
5
Even if one believes that we will have privacy laws that are enforceable doesn't mean the data ceases to exist. It is, therefore, hackable. Once information goes into cyberspace someone can find it. Stop living your life online or assume that everyone knows everything about you.
5
Very simple: adopt the GDPR privacy rules that the EU is implementing Big hint: U.S. companies are implementing the GDPR privacy protections for their EU clients, so the cost of doing so for U.S. citizens would be at little additional costs. As for their revenue, that is a different story...
23
An odd article that does not bother to mention the biggest personal data privacy scandal of all -- Snowden's revelation that the NSA collects domestic digital everything on virtually all domestic citizens -- all day every day -- without a warrant. That's too old news to matter?
38
Does the NSA have top privileges with Facebook data? After all it's for our own national security good!
1
Snowden also data-dumped information on Americans working in dangerous areas.
IMHO, he's nothing but a crummy traitor, who 50 years ago would have been hanged. That's why he's living in Russia, with other bums, IMHO.
2
Back in the 90's I took an early on-line course in data privacy from the Berkman Center.
Then, I learned that the fundamental right of privacy (at least in the USA) is completely subordinate to the much lower level of contract law. Europeans and Canadians have been so far ahead of the United States in recognizing that individuals should not be compelled to give up protected fundamental rights. Unless the legal culture of the USA begins to respect the individual's right to privacy, we may be asked to sign ourselves into slavery in the near future, on the grounds that it is really good for the free market economy.
46
You must be joking. Europe does not have a 1st Amendment. You want the government to supervise your reading, feel free to move. Thanks.
1
I don't think we should have to pay to protect our privacy. We have a reasonable expectation of privacy, period. Just because we visit certain websites doesn't mean they get to invade our privacy, harvest our personal information and target us with multitudinous ads, or attempt to manipulate us into changing our vote.
Why is it assumed we give up our privacy to visit free websites? We have privacy rights in the real world. Why don't those rights transfer to the cyber world? They should.
It is obvious our precious personal information is being misused and is no longer safe. When it can so easily be harvested and now, used against both us and our democracy, tighter controls must be put in place. No one needs to say: I told you so. Just protect us and our country.
18
Remember what the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, Scott McNealy, said back in the 90s? “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”
5
If it's online and it's free, YOU are the product.
Proceed accordingly.
7
But even if you pay for it, for instance a newspaper subscription, all of your data is taken and sold off. Yup, even here.
4
Why didn't the "privacy experts" and ACLU get outraged and say, "I told you so" after Obama's campaign team was bragging about grabbing data on hundreds of millions of Facebook users for the 2012 campaign?
6
Obama's campaign didn't hand it all over to the Russian Intelligence Services, for one.
5
Read the US Constitution and no where will you see the word "privacy" Some will point to the 4th Amendment & offer that as an explicit right to privacy in the US, but sadly, no it's not.
Some will point to the 14th Amendment "due process clause" and Griswold v. CT (1965) as the point at which time Americans gained their privacy, again wrong.
Both of these precedents protect US Citizens from intrusion from the Federal Gov't & States that comprise the larger jurisdictional arenas of this land.
But what of our privacy from corporations and individuals, what protections do we have? No much apparently.
If the 2nd Amendment needs an update to protect unarmed law abiding citizens from gun nuts armed with military grade hardware in public, then do we also need an update to the 4th Amendment to protect us from hyper-capitalists corporations tracking, marketing our every move, feeling, opinion, mistake, embarrassment, & most sensitive moments of our lives? More importantly what of individual computer coders/hackers who can literally rape any of us through our computers?
Yes laws exists to protect us after the fact, but what of a simple right to opt out of everything and delete all at once, & who owns our individual data?
A simple update of the 4th Amendment stipulating that American individually own their data & the right to opt out and delete of any/all data matrix(s) like Facebook would suffice.
Beginning to think a Federal Constitutional Convention is needed.
7
Turn on your lights, with the curtains open, unlock the doors, leave them open with mail and packages on the porch. Go to bed and consider would someone take advantage of this.
5
There are two questions which came to my mind. Neither may be resolved anytime soon.
The one is - how can infringed portrait rights be interrelated, as another urgent issue, with the violation of users’ privacy? The other - would the moral be able to subdue the technical, with the hands and hearts of all users?
For the second question, certain conflicts between the provider and the user may arise. For the first, certain types of cultural norms should be reviewed.
1
Too little,too late to put the information back. Not much satisfaction in saying I told you so. How could any one not think that the whole point of a business is to make money,and the way to do that is to monetize whatever they can.
10
I do feel just a little bit for Facebook. They have been thrown under the bus, even though a wide array of media and tech companies have been invading our privacy for years.
Some day, add a plugin-in or extension to your web browser and see all the trackers and "beacons" that are following you as you cruise the Internet. This being done by dozens of companies and web sites, including the one you reading right now. Consider your smartphone and all the tracking information, such as where you walk and drive everyday, and what music you listen to, is being scooped up by companies, including your wireless phone company.
Many of us shrug and consider this the price of convenience. Or believe companies when they insist they anonymize this information. If so, why the outrage at just Facebook, when they are but one player?
21
I take the position that Facebook is a publisher and data privacy is an issue that can be ameliorated by having editors who will say “no” to both advertisers and those who write content (us), when it’s required. The claim by any social medium, not just Facebook, that its role is akin to that of printer in the newspaper business is absurd and has been for a long time. The absurdity has been (and is being) ignored because of money.
1
I feel like there's one true way to separate consumer talk from consumer action to see if the privacy academics are truly right. Facebook can introduce a new product: a paywall version with no advertising or data collection where users pay monthly (or yearly). How many users will forego the free version for the paid version when given the choice?
8
This topic could be discussed with a lot more clarity if we invented a new word for internet privacy. The old meaning and this new one are blended in a way that heightens the anxiety on the subject.
I don't want another person peeping through my windows or gathering personal stuff I didn't intentionally make public and publicizing it- especially with people I know or might encounter somehow.
This is not the same as computers gathering data, storing and often marketing it without another human connecting the information to you in a personal way.
I certainly don't want Google employees to be able to look into my files- especially, say, an ex girl friend or someone who is friends with a business competitor.
The business of storing information about my consumer habits to do target advertising is something entirely different, but the media is talking about it as though it was an affront to personal privacy- it isn't. It may be property that I am entitled to but that is a violation of my ownership- not my privacy.
I certainly don't want my personal information to be used to undermine democracy either- but this is still a different issue than the old fashioned meaning of privacy.
4
Yup, it is more than about what brand of cat food you buy. Much, much more.
1
“Nerds win,” — so the Harvard prof says, as in, being able to write your own code— but it also takes a thief: to steal the social idea, which Z was otherwise clueless about; and it takes a liar, too — repeatedly lying to users about how they can “set” their privacy settings, while scraping off thousands of micro-behaviors, not only from ones own actions, but across the sets of affiliated persons who interact on the web. This is more than a coincidental side effect or byproduct of providing consumers their social media services — it is the raison d’être, the core businesss model, the modus operandi of Facebook.
It takes all 3: technical ability; theft of ideas, and deceit, to make a Zuckerberg.
16
Considering that social media & much of today's tech was founded by hackers (now Silicon Valley moguls), the privacy issues are no surprise. I am surprised by how gullible the Millennial have been though; life won't be kind to this ill-prepared generation.
9
Don't be uneasy. Zuckerberg said, we didn't do good protecting privacy, but, we will do better. He didn't know how, but thinks Artificial Intelligence tools will figure it out. There, now. Don't you feel better?
12
This explanation was just plain scary! We'll just sic more on ya!
I work in the tech industry and the Cambridge Analytica scandal didn't surprise me at all. What surprises me is the amount of users who trust in internet companies so blindly. So many scandals about major data theft, leaks, and secret back doors won't change people's mind unless they see practical negative consequences to them (or people close to them) in the short term.
One fundamental underlying issues I wished was more often debated is this: why is the state not more pro-active & preemptive when it comes to the introduction of new medias & new technologies? Why do we have to wait for major abuses of trust or a major crisis or incident to start strengthening and enforcing the rules? The same pattern keeps repeating: for the sake of innovation, economic development or individual comfort, we let companies introduce new products and services without enough public education and consultation; bad actors abuse them for years until one is too careless and then we discuss what we should (have) do(ne) about it...
Consider the death of a pedestrian earlier this year when she was hit by a self-driving car on a public road. It's the same thing. We have to wait for the first accident to have a more serious look about it and set better rules; but it was so predictable.
New technologies are developing and deeply changing society at an ever faster pace. Do we want to chose where we go (and don't go) in the long term, or just belatedly react to the future imposed to us by corporates?
33
There are programs out there such as Facebook's 'Techniques' that have taken spying to a whole, entirely different level. The average person is clueless, including Senators. It's nefarious stuff.
1
No data collection and analyses = no web billionaires. And as for our elected officials raising the idea of regulations and asking Mr Zuckerberg to recommend some, wow. Even if members of Congress understood the deep state of the online world, which they don't, they might poke that reliable campaign piggy bank and data source but they certainly wouldn't break it. Props to Durbin for the hotel question, tho.
24
"Props to Durbin for the hotel question, tho."
Durbin is age 73 and a lifelong government paycheck-collector. He understands Facebook? LOL absurd. His interns wrote that question.
Zuck stayed at the Willard .. or Hay-Adams .. or Ritz .. or Four Seasons. As in, duh.
1
Think that these services are really free? Think again. Businesses will never sacrifice their profit margins from the higher cost of targeted advertising unless they can recoup it or more in the pricing.
The endgoal of profiling is to get customers to pay a higher price for EXACTLY THE SAME product or service. Suppose that you walk into a car dealership because of a mention or click on a targeted ad (gotcha!). Based on your profile, the algorithm will make an offer that is 10% ($000) higher than the guy who is anonymous. Now multiply it by all your other purchases.
How does that make you feel?
12
Sort of like a woman who is paid less in her job because she is a woman.
Women must pay more for everything because of wage discrimination too.
This is a new generation, century and industry, so there will be a learning curve -- probably the way people 100 years ago had to get used to cars, radio, air travel, telephones and electricity. Young people created this entirely new world of social media and started out with an attitude of openness, which is nice, if naïve. Edward Snowden Chelsea Manning, maybe Mark Zuckerberg -- al young people who wanted to believe the new world should be made with transparency and different from the old world of secrets. So, we all learn that it's a nice wish, but ultimately, there are bad people who take even our best intentions and corrupt them; then we have to apply security and confidentiality and take care to protect our critical information from the people who want to do us harm. Wish such people weren't around, but I guess that's life. So ... they're learning as this new media continues to grow.
3
Good for them. There is also money, to be made, in actions of doing the right thing for everybody.
I wish Facebook and Internet junkies would have the same rage now as they did when Snowden and Assange alleged the worlds end over the collection of metadata. People are embarrassing.
24
No instead they must live in exile possibly for the rest of their lives.
Fascism is alive and well.
Snowden endangered the lives of Americans working overseas, with his clumsy and sloppy data-dump. IMHO, he's nothing but a crummy traitor who should hang.
Obscure surveillance mechanisms have been designed into computer operating systems, many programs, and data transmission systems. Lack of privacy is a design feature of internet connected computers. The challenge for journalism would be to research who made decisions, for what motivations and at what point in time, resulting in surveillance potentially affecting hundreds of millions of people.
13
Search out Facebook's Techniques program if you want to see where our future already is.
1
You mean the same privacy advocates who took money from all the big companies, only criticized the USG, and did nothing while companies collected tons of data? I'm glad their finally getting a chance to tell us who they really feel.
2
Several companies engage in this sort of data collection. A couple of years ago Uber sent me an updated privacy policy informing me it would track user locations and movements 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It also indicated it would collect the names and addresses of all my personal contacts to be used for “marketing purposes.” Uber implied these conditions were a requirement for anyone who used its services, and said the collection was justified because it would improve customer service. For example, Uber would learn a user’s most frequented restaurant or coffee shop, and target marketing accordingly.
This began an extensive back and forth email discussion between me and Uber representatives, who told me these terms were non-negotiable. Eventually, Uber did tell me how to continue using its services without compromising my privacy or that of those in my address book.
Uber users should check the company’s privacy policy and restrict access to personal information they don’t want to share.
50
Perhaps you could share with us what Uber said about how to use the app without compromising your privacy. Maybe we could apply that knowledge to other apps.
8
Kudos to you! This is nothing short of commercial extortion.
This is why class action suits are all about. The power of a company will always overwhelm that of a few customers.
6
Yes. Just dumped Lyft and their non-stop "$20 discount" ($2 off, per ride, for 10 rides). Just annoying as heck.
How to drive Uber nuts? Turn off your "location" icon regularly. LOL at Uber.
Congratulations--this is an excellent story angle. To complement and expand, Shoshana Zuboff is a thought-provoking writer about the much, much wider societal and economic implications of Surveillance Capitalism. She's got a book coming out next month. (Her work is one of the reasons I'm not surprised by any of this.)
4
Surveillance Capitalism=Fascism
1
After pretending outrage, our elected officials did nothing to protect the majority of Americans after the recent catastrophic Equifax data breach, which was caused by the carelessness & greed of Equifax itself. Now our elected officials are pretending to care about Facebook's greed & carelessness. I would like to feel hopeful that internet privacy rules will be improved in favor of the average American, but I am understandably skeptical.
72
Indeed. We need to make distinctions between data which leads to identity theft and ruined credit scores, vs. what flavor ice cream a person prefers.
We also need to recognize that knowing demographic data in aggregate is largely what Democracy is about. That sharing what is important to us makes for better government. And that if it weren't for brave individuals coming forward with personal stories, many laws would never change.
This also goes the heart of Internet development. Twenty years ago, Silicon Valley had an important discussion. Google "Cathedral and the Bazaar". How do you hold developers responsible? I don't enjoy regulation, but the internet started as a military project, which is to say command and control. A free for all was never the intention.
3
Internet privacy rules will not be improved as long as they serve the interests of the rich and powerful. Marketing and advertising serve the interests of the corporate rulers and the politicians they have bought.
Expect this outrage to go the same way as the Equifax debacle.
2
I could not agree with you more Jane. As with the Equifax data breach, the banking and housing deplorable debacle back in 2008, and now the dreaded Facebook follies, will there be any consequences to their reckless and careless actions and decisions? Perhaps steep fines and a probationary period. Probably not. Why are these kinds of "missteps" and errors in judgment dismissed with simple "I'm sorry" "Me bad" "I promise to do better" dribble?
As usual, there is a different rule book for regular folks like us who commit reckless and damaging acts and then there are folks like Mark Zuckerberg who will probably just walk away, dodging a cyber pellet.
4
Wrote a long novel about that in 2013. It was probably a bad book (that's why I rewrote it) but the comment that stung was from an agent who said "We don't do science fiction." Wow! And it is not the privacy intrusions that are most worrisome, but rather it's the mind set of directed manipulation that has taken hold on the Internet and in the media.
6
This article! Thank you to everyone in the tech industry who is involved in these companies. My household has been aware of this for over a decade, but we didn't know who else was ... our conversations with folks close to us resemble what is reported here. We pieced together and followed these same thoughts, and what abuses might be lurking out there, trying to avoid any overstatement of our concerns. To those who would prefer to manipulate others -- beware! I believe there are many of us who will be successful in helping one another to thrive.
3