Since 2016, Facebook has been paying users ages 13 to 35 up to $20 per month plus referral fees to sell their privacy by installing the iOS or Android "Facebook Research" app. Facebook even asked users to screenshot their Amazon order history page.
[...] Ads for the program run by uTest on Instagram and Snapchat sought teens 13-17 years old for a "paid social media research study." The sign-up page for the Facebook Research program administered by Applause doesn't mention Facebook, but seeks users "Age: 13-35 (parental consent required for ages 13-17)." If minors try to sign-up, they're asked to get their parents' permission with a form that reveal's Facebook's involvement and says "There are no known risks associated with the project, however you acknowledge that the inherent nature of the project involves the tracking of personal information via your child's use of apps. You will be compensated by Applause for your child's participation."
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/
(Score: 0, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday January 31 2019, @04:36AM
4th. Quarter earnings came out today. Great numbers for Facebook. And they were better than anyone thought possible. They have 2.7 billion folks on their platform. And they beat Chang Chi-yuan, we don't hear about him anymore. Great job! https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5996545701001/ [foxbusiness.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @04:40AM (3 children)
Seeking "complete access" to a minor's "data" could be a crime.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:00AM
It's not a crime when you get the permission. Of the Mother -- or Father. Facebook always gets permission. And Roy Moore always gets permission. So sad what the Crooked Dems did to him!!
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Thursday January 31 2019, @01:16PM
They also get access to personal information communicated to those minors by other minors.
FB took my email addresses and phone numbers out of the phones of contacts who had my information, then started spamming each of those email addresses.
Later I used a rooted phone with honey pot phone book entries, and installed the FB app. I refused permission to access the contacts. A short while later those honey pots received email solicitations from FB.
The more surprising part of the story is that they're asking the minors parents (if in fact they actually are) and paying rather than simply taking the data, possibly through a 'free' kids game.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 31 2019, @02:59PM
Seeking complete access to a minor's body could be a crime.
Providing a new feature to allow minors to share and sell pictures of, or access to their bodies would be profitable. Especially if Facebook got a 30% cut similar to Google Play and Apple iTunes.
Nobody would be shocked if Facebook were to do something like that.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @04:57AM (3 children)
Facebook obviously has no shame and ethics which are on par with most common criminals.
Zuckerberg needs to be stopped.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:07AM
This does indeed seem somewhat shady and possibly illegal, could be different from country to country. But I'm quite certain that in most countries children are not allowed to enter into agreements, or deals, of this type. As noted if you are in the 13-17 age range it requires parental consent. Question is in what form? Is it a checkbox or how does said consent appear or work in this context. Signed form that have to be mailed in? Facebook request to the parents? "Hi Mom/Dad, want to let us track everything your child does .. we'll give you candy and $20!". How many kids have accounts that actually show their actual and real age? I'm sure they have an official one but also a "fake" on that they don't want others to know about that might not then show their actual age.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:59AM (1 child)
Facebook as a corporation shows strong psychomatic traits, like all corporations [siivola.org] by nature, because of the very definition of the corporate personhood.
Unlike other corporations however, what's alarming and disturbing with the psychopatic Facebook persona is that it has such wide-ranging access to sensitive private date on real individual, with an almost unlimited potential to ruin people's lives. Other big data players such as Google or Amazon are equally dangerous for the same reason.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday January 31 2019, @01:20PM
psychomatic is indeed a word, and may be what you meant.
psychopatic is likely a typo, but I can't tell whether it is a typo for psychomatic or psychopathic.
Please enlighten.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:13AM
For using the "enterprise distribution" option to install the app on the kids' iphones.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Thursday January 31 2019, @07:15AM
First off is the reporting leaves out an important piece of information. Just how big was this thing? Everybody does marketing surveys, this one was pretty damned invasive but if they disclosed they were doing it, and they sorta did, and it was limited to a pool just big enough to be statistically meaningful and NOT a sucking down of vast swaths of people's data, then it is only mildly skeevy. Since they were paying $20/head/month it is likely it was fairly limited.
The abuse of the Apple internal dev program is obviously a clear contract violation. On the other hand the fact it was the only way to do something like this should be a huge red flag to STOP USING APPLE PRODUCTS YOU MORONS. Yes, Apple isn't abusing that power themselves to monitize their customers. Yet. Remember when Google's motto was "Don't be evil."? Well Apple can afford to be high minded when they are pulling in such fat margins from the sheep addicted to their overpriced fashion accessories, but sales are flattening and it won't take much of that for those high minded principles to get sacrificed on the altar of quarterly profits. The point is Apple's absolute ownership of "your" device is a power that should not be entrusted to anyone, ever. Sooner or later something awful is going happen simply because it must. Sure Steve was cool. Maybe Tim is trustworthy. And the next one? Don't set the precedent and you don't have to wonder.
Notice the reports (I saw it at zerohedge) of the chaos at Facebook as Apple revoked their internal development cert and borked every internal app inside Facebook. Do YOU want to absolutely trust some external oligarch with the power of life and death over your day to day internal operations? So stop deploying things your organization does not own and does not control. That includes the Cloud, defined as "someone else's computer."
And the final observation, if you don't want to be spied on, do a little due diligence on the crap you are loading onto your LoJack. And don't sign up for a "RESEARCH PROGRAM" run by FaceBorg, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:28PM (1 child)
"How much for the little girl? How much for the women?"
"What?"
"Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters... sell them to me. Sell me your children!"
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:54PM
No.