Paraphrasing Monty Python:
“And when we say there is absolutely no cannibalism in the Royal Navy, we mean, there is a little bit, which we will have to root out”
The website Ars Technica reported that users who checked data gathered by Facebook on them found that it had years of contact names, telephone numbers, call lengths and text messages.
Facebook said Sunday the information is uploaded to secure servers and comes only from Android users who opt-in to allow it. Spokeswomen say the data is not sold or shared with users’ friends or outside apps. They say the data is used “to improve people’s experience across Facebook” by helping to connect with others.
The brutal reality is that we have to assume that any data that can be collected is being collected, will be retained indefinitely, and will be propagated uncontrollably and mercilessly exploited.
Privacy is soooo 20th Century.
I recall in the 90s when the grocery chains started offering their discount cards thinking at some point in the future people would be denied insurance because they had been buying red meat and Funyuns for 15 years
I have yet to find a situation in this (Mal)Administration and its dealings that I was unable to attach an appropriate Monty Python quote or scene to. It’s like they were prescient.
Sure, I believe that they did not directly or indirectly sell this data, and that the options for deciding which permissions the app had access to were entirely transparent.
I also bought this really nice bridge last week.
The interesting thing is that on the european side this kind of behavior has criminal penalties.
… especially when users proceed to install into Android apps requesting permissions to harvest such data. Facebook users accepted these invasions into their privacy either because they couldn’t be bothered with reading and understanding the permissions they were granting or because they could not forgo the addiction to attention from friends and family on the platform for the sake of preserving privacy. However, it does not exculpate Facebook that their users are attention addicted and lack the savvy to use an alternative as simple as email. Neither should Google get away with exposing something as private as phone records to data predators.
When mulling over whether to trust your data with FB, know that the company’s entire business model is based on getting your data, crunching it, analyzing it, selling it. Why in the world would anyone believe that data is safe or protected? Delete your FB account and never look back. Done and done.