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Facebook Sued for Scanning Private User Messages

posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday May 24 2016, @10:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-big-shock dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

A California man is suing Facebook for allegedly scanning the content of private messages sent between users of the site.

The suit alleges that Facebook scans the messages in search of hyperlinks sent between users. "If there is a link to a web page contained in that message, Facebook treats it as a 'like' of the page, and increases the page's 'like,' counter by one," the suit contends. The site tracks when users "like" pages in order to compile individual profiles that allow third parties to send targeted advertisements.

Source: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/facebook-sued-for-scanning-private-user-messages/article/2591806

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday May 24 2016, @02:31PM

    by isostatic (365) on Tuesday May 24 2016, @02:31PM (#350314) Journal

    Like any communication, it's entirely possible to send a private message, simply encrypt it with the recipient's public key before you paste the output into the send box.

    The fact you've sent a message to someone is known, but the contents aren't.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by WillR on Tuesday May 24 2016, @03:08PM

    by WillR (2012) on Tuesday May 24 2016, @03:08PM (#350328)
    The fact that you've sent an encrypted message to someone is known, and from that the fact that the content would be interesting to someone other than the recipient is inferred.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 24 2016, @09:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 24 2016, @09:18PM (#350483)

      Until they throw their computing power at it and find out the geeks just didn't want their conversations overheard. Blah blah blah nothing of interest to anyone else blah blah.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 24 2016, @04:48PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday May 24 2016, @04:48PM (#350388)

    Like any communication, it's entirely possible to send a private message, simply encrypt it with the recipient's public key before you paste the output into the send box.

    Yeah, and good luck with 1) getting your recipient to go learn about public-key encryption so they actually know what it is and how it works, and 2) agreeing on a particular scheme and getting them to use it.

  • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday May 25 2016, @09:50AM

    by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday May 25 2016, @09:50AM (#350716)

    And WhatsApp may even be end-to-end encrypted (I don't recall). But they still have the number of communications, with whom, the frequency, etc. And there were recently reports on using metadata (what they would have) to infer a surprising amount of data. Well, not terribly surprising, because the amount you can glean from a little info is usually quite a lot.