...because I just requested my archive. 368mb of very well organized info like profile basics, history, photos, messages, videos, etc.
And every single thing I either told them when I signed up in 2009 or clicked on, joined, liked, whatever. No secret stash of phone calls or regular texts. Is this getting overblown?
So, I just Googled Facebook to see what came up. Top of the list was how do I download my FB archive. If you think FB is bad, imagine what Google tracks.
I automatically assume that everything I do on line or on my phone is tracked. I automatically assume they are selling every bit of info they can. There are two choices, deal with it or stay off line.
Remember, if you aren't paying for the service, then you are the product being sold.
Don't install apps on your phone. Use a browser. Apps are like you installing a virus on your computer on purpose. Install ghostery to strip the trackers out of HTML and JavaScript. Don't put anything in your profile. Don't allow your browser to use location. Connect to the internet over a VPN because your carrier, isp, and everyone else in the internet is trying to monetize you. But if you are careful you can use the services without the services using you too much.
ultraclyde said:Remember, if you aren't paying for the service, then you are the product being sold.
That's how that little dickbag Zuckerburg can be so rich.
I don't do anything wrong. At least not with any intent. That being said, if I find the thing I'm looking for more quickly because FB/Google have me profiled...Brilliant.
#nothingtohide
Imagine how people felt when phones taps first became a thing.
In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker :
Good advice. But it’s futile. Privacy is over.
Privacy isn't about having things to hide or not. If you think it is about having things to hide, then go get your full medical history and post that up here for us all to read. Can I see your bank statements for the last 10 years? How about putting up some pictures of your credit cards and tax returns? Could you start recording all your conversations with your closest friends and family and posting those up here so they can be transcribed for us to read? Put up some cameras in your bedroom and bathroom and living room so people can watch.
The biggest problem - and where this is a bigger deal than government wiretaps, at least here in the US - is that the companies that are collecting, aggregating, and processing all this data can do whatever they want with it.
Always assume that everything is being tracked, cameras are always on, and microphones are "hot".
Jerry said:...because I just requested my archive. 368mb of very well organized info like profile basics, history, photos, messages, videos, etc.
And every single thing I either told them when I signed up in 2009 or clicked on, joined, liked, whatever. No secret stash of phone calls or regular texts. Is this getting overblown?
The real question- are you ok with someone selling that data with the intention of making money off of you (by both FB and the buyer, whoever that is)?
If you are ok with that, then it's overblown. If you are not, then it's a serious problem.
Bear in mind- one thing that bugged me about FB a long time ago was that it had face recognition- so you could be traced from place to place by your and anyone else's picture where your face can be seen. That kind of bothers me.
I'm happy with being a little more anonymous than other people, which is one reason I've kept away from FB. And other social media stuff. And why I don't have a direct name to any of the board IDs- yes I know one can go and find it if they want. But it's a tiny barrier that makes it easier to target other people than me.
And I find it humorous that people "have nothing to hide" are ok with this. This isn't about people looking if you are doing wrong, they are looking to take advantage of you regardless. And you can claim that only bad people are doing that- but the reality is that the directed advertising that you see is exactly that. And I hate that.
ultraclyde said:Remember, if you aren't paying for the service, then you are the product being sold.
This, 1000%. As long as you know this going in, you can make a value judgment about whether the loss of privacy is worth the product you are being "given".
Personally, I don't share all that much on Facebook, not because of privacy concerns, but because I don't think my life is all that interesting that people would want to read about every aspect of it. Google, on the other hand, probably knows me better than I know myself. To me, it's worth it for the services I get from them, but I'm at least aware of the loss of privacy.
The concern with Facebook is that it's undermining the elections by providing highly granular data to the highest bidder with no concern for the identity of the datas end user. The type of data being fed in (Fun personality "tests", pictures, content of text messages, likes associated with party issues) allows data scientists to build a very accurate profile of users in specific regions. From there you can target advertisements and news or "news" to prompt an action.
You saw this in an above board manner in the 2012 election where President Obama's information team out maneuvered Romney in several key states by turning key counties in swing states "Pink" instead of red. Romney's team (using Orca a pretty spectacular failure and interesting read) failed to make the most of the analytics and was beaten in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida using this strategy. You saw the reverse of this in the 2016 election.
In the case of the last election profiles were built by foreign actors with intent to influence the outcome of the election. Whatever you might think of either candidate that poses a very serious problem to any republic.
Secondly this isn't the first time Facebook has lost control of their data. There's a 2011 Consent order in place by the FTC which carries a maximum fine of $16000 USD per infraction of data they lose control in response to the last incident involving Beacon. I mentioned this elsewhere, but that order is supposed to be Sword of Damocles. It's about time to use it.
When I worked at AutoTrader we had a presentation about how we proved to our dealer customers that we were part of the car buying process. Since Cox owns...everything...in the automotive sales world, the tracking was placed on every website and buying tool. It was all traced, right down to the final purchase. That was over five years ago, and just for buying a car.
Data mining is part of my consulting gig, digging through site data to identify trends before users know they want it. But my gig is car parts, not voting data, so I don't feel too bad.
I'm not sure if it is called "The Machine", but this show probably wasn't far off.
In reply to slefain :
I run analytics on my company's corporate website. There's a fine distinction between Facebook and typical analytics programs. Facebook is actively attempting to vacuum up information by stalking people around the web (just look up the blocklist required to avoid them) and actively trying to draw personal information out so it can resell profiles to advertisers.
People like you and I just want to know what products are of interest to particular demographics and if our advertising campaigns are working so we can better tailor our services. We care if users visited the site multiple times but don't necessarily need to know where the user went afterwards or what their interests are beyond the scope of our offerings.
One is important to your business and one is your business. The latter of the two is where it crosses the line for most people.
I'd like to seem some privacy regulation here in the US in light of Equifax and Facebooks latest issue. It's pretty obvious to even a casual observer that there's a problem. It's just going to get worse the longer it's ignored. The EU legislation would seem to provide a pretty good starting point to build on.
I'm going to post whore here because I detest the "nothing to hide" argument.
For government: the protections exists so that you don't have to worry about being found guilty of "found crimes." There's a reason US citizens rights are structured in the manner that they are.
For corporation: the idea is that their influence is lessened. It's basically what we're seeing right now with the election meddling as well as advertising that needs to be avoided. You might think you're too smart to be influenced but the data collected allows campaigns to be structured to appeal to base emotional hot buttons which circumvents the intellectual parsing of data, especially if you're in an echo chamber like Facebook.
I'd think really hard about how you feel about those things before using the nothing to hide argument.
I don't really care about the whole thing.
I agree with the0retical's points. But it's a moot issue. The ship has sailed.
The election machine, and therefore the government, want to track you. So do the corporations that pay for everything. Those mean that if you choose to participate in this society, you will be tracked. Sure, the level of tracking can be varied some, but it will never be decreased through legal means because the people making the rules profit from it.
I suppose it's possible to check out of society, move to an underdeveloped country, and live in the wilderness. But unless you're going to that extreme it's too late. You might as well choose your value level as Tom_Spangler said and try to maximize what you get out of the deal, because you don't have a choice. That's not fair or right, but it doesn't matter.
Anyone think about the fact we're discussing this on a free-membership forum?
Facebook knows I like car stuff. Send me more advertisements for car stuff, less about baking. I'm happy.
They want to sell the fact that I like car stuff to the highest bidder? Whatever. Enjoy your bitcoins.
I requested mine. This will be interesting.
Edit. Just got it. 5.4 megabytes. About to dig in.
Edit. Seems like worthless data to me. *shrug*
ultraclyde said:The election machine, and therefore the government, want to track you. So do the corporations that pay for everything. Those mean that if you choose to participate in this society, you will be tracked. Sure, the level of tracking can be varied some, but it will never be decreased through legal means because the people making the rules profit from it
You can cut your level of tracking to zero but it's really freaking hard and certainly not practical for anyone. People who live like this are spies, leakers, "serious business" journalists, and black hat hackers.
You can greatly minimize your tracking footprint without much inconvenience. The law of diminishing returns applies, and there are some big juicy low-hanging fruits for the average user. Like deleting huge privacy nightmare apps like Facebook, Facebook Messenger, MoviePass and Uber.
Privacy is now something of a luxury good, only available to the rich who can afford it, and elite hackers who can take it.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Going completely off grid isn't really an option anymore if you want to live any semblance of a modern life. In addition to uninstalling the apps, which is probably the best thing you can do, you can install browser extensions such as Privacy Badger and No Script and run a Pi-Hole to get rid of the most intrusive tracking. Disable locational tracking on the phone, run a VPN, ditch the FitBit and that'll get most people 80% of the way there. All that is mostly low effort.
For the rest:
ultraclyde said:Anyone think about the fact we're discussing this on a free-membership forum?
When Amazon starts serving me Lotus Europa and Maserati Bi-Turbo parts ads, I'll know who to blame.
Never had FB and never will.
XKCD, predictably, had an appropriate comic on personal data:
My own take is that it's generally not a good idea to put anything on the Internet that you wouldn't mind seeing copied on the front page of your local newspaper. There's the potential for anything you post to make it to your spouse, your mom, your boss, etc. So it's wise to put a very narrow band-pass filter between what you're thinking and what you say online. The Internet can turn the entire world into that small town where you'll never live down that story about that one time at the high school dance.
Targeted ads aren't a big issue for me. But I really don't like sites that try to track location and publish it - I don't want some website blabbing, "Hey, MadScientistMatt is on the other side of the country right now if you want to break into his house!"
Facebook's face recognition can be a bit scary sometimes. I once took a picture of my cousin holding a crawfish at the camera, with the crawfish in focus and his face blurry. Facebook tagged him in the pic as soon as it was uploaded. OTOH, it missed a lot of other faces.
MadScientistMatt said:Facebook's face recognition can be a bit scary sometimes. I once took a picture of my cousin holding a crawfish at the camera, with the crawfish in focus and his face blurry. Facebook tagged him in the pic as soon as it was uploaded. OTOH, it missed a lot of other faces.
Facebook doesn't just have face recognition, it can recognize you by your body.
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