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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-shocked-I-say dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/19/facebook-data-privacy-access-tech-companies/

Just about 24 hours ago, we published a story recapping Facebook's terrible 2018. But the year isn't over, and it looks like the drama is going to continue until the bitter end. According to an investigation by The New York Times that cites interviews with more than 60 people, including former Facebook employees, the company gave Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify and other tech firms far greater access to user data than previously disclosed. Earlier this month, the paper reported how some of these companies were receiving favored access to people's information, but we didn't know it was allegedly giving certain ones the ability to read, write and delete private messages.

The data sharing was so deep that even Facebook's business partners were surprised by it: Spotify said it was unaware of this special access while Netflix claims it never checked people's private messages on Facebook nor did it ever "ask for the ability to do so." Apple, meanwhile, was white-listed to view users' phone numbers and calendar entries, but it said it was not aware of this special access.

[...] The biggest issue with Facebook, which hasn't responded to our request for comment, is that it always waits until after a bombshell to clarify its policies -- that's how it got into this mess to begin with.

Meanwhile takyon notes that:

After a year from hell, Facebook parties like it's 2017

Last weekend, Facebook hosted a lavish two-day Christmas party for employees. The event, held this year at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, had a winter village theme. It looked like a lovely time for all!

The party was documented by attendees who naturally posted pictures to Instagram (owned by Facebook!). In one corner they delighted to dancers and performers dressed as elves, and discussed perhaps the news this weekend (posted on a blog by Facebook on Friday evening) that a bug had let developers see photos that users uploaded but never actually posted. It affected 6.8 million users. Or maybe they didn't bother discussing this – it seemed a relatively minor screw-up based on the year Facebook has had.

Apparently the mirror reflecting their past year has a bit of distortion.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:13PM (9 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:13PM (#776784) Homepage Journal

    It cannot be much longer before Facebook is facing a whole series of GDPR lawsuits. While it only took effect last Spring, and so doesn't apply to actions before that, it seems that Facebook is incapable of understanding privacy. A couple of lawsuits resulting in penalties measures as a percentage of global turnover? That might, just might get their attention.

    And if they just decide to leave Europe entirely? Why, that would be even better!

    What a scummy company...

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by BsAtHome on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:49PM (4 children)

    by BsAtHome (889) on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:49PM (#776790)

    Yes, the lawsuits are already on their way in the EU. Also, many indirectly related lawsuits are running in parallel, where facebook or google are third parties, but are embedded into the first party's website. These have actually been running before the GDPR, but are still relevant. The rules got more strict with the GDPR.

    At some stage, the negativity in the word facebook will be enough to equate the word with "liars" and "parasites" (see f.x. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/20/facebook_disaster/ [theregister.co.uk] ). Then the house of cards will collapse, simply to follow in the footsteps of friendster and myspace. That will be the day, when the real party is celebrated.

    • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:35PM (3 children)

      by cubancigar11 (330) on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:35PM (#776862) Homepage Journal

      I closed my facebook account earlier this year, and to my surprise, my profile was still visible 6 months later. Apparently, there is 'delete' then there is 'permanently delete', latter of which I could only as a link on some other website that was explaining how to do it.

      At the end of the day, I got rid of everything except LinkedIn.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:53PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:53PM (#776905)

        except LinkedIn

        Hahahahahahaha! Hahahahaha! You poor bastard!

        • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:27PM (1 child)

          by cubancigar11 (330) on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:27PM (#776932) Homepage Journal

          Hey man, that thing is actually useful. And it doesn't have me discussing my private life, only projecting my professional image.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @12:34AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @12:34AM (#777027)

            Fair enough then.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:40PM (3 children)

    by stormwyrm (717) on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:40PM (#776865) Journal
    If Facebook pulls out of Europe that would be corporate suicide. As soon as that happens Europeans will start looking for alternatives, and any alternative social networking platform out there that can comply with the GDPR would instantly have access to some 750 million people. The resulting network effects would rapidly pull even non-European users away from Facebook the same way they pulled people away from MySpace and Friendster a decade or so ago. No, they'll have to comply with the GDPR if they want to stay in business.
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    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday December 21 2018, @01:56AM (2 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday December 21 2018, @01:56AM (#777050) Homepage

      They're only taking Facebook down because he didn't censor and manipulate hard enough to get Hillary elected, and then, which is awesome, he tried to draw the fire by blaming Soros -- which everybody kvetched about being "Anti-Semitic" even though Zuck and Sandberg are both Jews.

      You all know what I think about Zuck and Fuckbook, but unlike other shit platforms like twitter, he at least pretended to fight a little on the side of free-speech. He, being a Jew and this naturally good at business, foresaw the backlash coming against PC bullshit and positioned himself a step ahead to anticipate it. And the whole insulting Soros thing and being an ass-hair better about fairness than other platforms really gets the Globalists (read: Democrats and EU) on your shit-list.

      Perhaps when McCain Died, Zuck saw that it made more sense for Facebook to be a proper business and not an arm of the CIA and NSA.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @03:34AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @03:34AM (#777081)

        even though Zuck and Sandberg are both Jews.

        Do you know that it was a jew that sank the Titanic?
        Just look at the name - Iceberg.

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @03:48AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @03:48AM (#777083)
          Gee, so Hitler really flubbed things when he got those Jews Alfred Rosenberg, Curt von Gottberg, and Carl Oberg to work for him. He should have sent the lot of them to the concentration camps instead!