Great headline and photo choice by Drudge.
He's linking to "Zuckerberg says most Facebook users should assume they have had their public info scraped/Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a call to reporters that users who had a specific search functionality turned on should 'assume' that their public profile has been scraped" (CNBC):
"We've seen some scraping," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a call with reporters. "I would assume if you had that setting turned on that someone at some point has access to your public information in some way," he said.I'll bet Zuckerberg felt he was saying something mellow, not Orwellian at all. There's just "some scraping" and only "if you had that setting turned on" and — just for thought purposes — you should "assume" — because it's possible.
The setting Zuckerberg referred to is one where users let other users search for them by e-mail address or phone number instead of by name.Do you know if you had that turned on?
ADDED: I just went to Facebook and tried to figure out if I had that setting turned on, and I couldn't find it. I can see that I put my phone number in there, and I suspect they required me to give a phone number to get an account. I don't remember. But, you know, in the old days, we all had landlines and the phone company was the phone company. You had to use The Phone Company, and it delivered a phone book that had everyone's name and number in it (unless you paid them extra to be "unlisted").
IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Boyd sees the word within the word: "Not just scraped, gang-scraped."
Posts
66 comments:
Scrape, or scrape-scrape.
Shocking!
"We collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others."
That’s the way Facebook makes money. The users are now learning this.
Who doesn’t know that they are making personal information public when Participating on the internet? I mean little kids and retards (In
My best Matt Dillon voice)?
Should read “besides little kids and retards.
He's like the clueless supervillains in 60s movies. Just affably destroying the social fabric of society, with no idea why anyone would be upset with him.
I have trouble logging in to some accounts because I can't remember the sex and birth date I used.
And I've bought exactly zero items from Facebook ads.
I see the reflexive use of the argument: Everyone already knew that or they were being willfully ignorant, so there's nothing to complain about. People were stupid when they liked what they were getting, so they deserve whatever advantage was taken.
But culture and politics don't work like that. We can get mad, we can rise up, we can retaliate. Facebook could disintegrate in a minute if all the users up and left. Yeah, the data is still out there, to be used and manipulated, but the company is subject to instant doom at any moment, and it must know that and mollify us.
I have seen a message from Facebook that I should contribute my phone number so they can aid my recovering the account. I didn't. It was a while ago.
Facebook could disintegrate in a minute if all the users up and left.
This is why I consider these huge companies, like Facebook and Google, to be "vaporware." They make nothing and are parasites on society, sort of like the British aristocracy in 1914.
There's just "some scraping" and only "if you had that setting turned on" and — just for thought purposes — you should "assume" — because it's possible.
Sounds like Zuckerberg is blaming the "scrape victims" for being "scraped".
File under toxic metrosexualty.
Years ago, when I was still a hipster all my friends were on Friendster. Anyone here remember Friendster. It was before Facebook. I faced serious peer-pressure to resist getting on Friendster because I thought it was creepy. By the time Facebook came around I was immune and nothing could induce me to get join. But I think creepy was the right thing to think
Next he'll ask "what were you wearing?" at the time.
Sorry, but the crowd here at Ann’s place overall is much more intelligent and tech savvy than the general public. Anyone who has worked with technology knows that, at best, 20% or so of people really have any understanding of how the internet and the companies that use it really work.
FB, Google/YouTube, etc., have billions of customers, and therefore billions of unwitting dupes. From their connections with others, including those who do try to protect their privacy, they have data on basically everyone who uses the internet.
I see the LameStream Media© and Democrats are still obsessing over the "unprecedented" mining of data on FaceBook that occurred recently. I find the lack of coverage over the same behavior by the Obama campaign rather curious. The Obama campaign was hailed as being genius for doing the exact same thing.
A former Obama campaign official is claiming that Facebook knowingly allowed them to mine massive amounts of Facebook data — more than they would’ve allowed someone else to do — because they were supportive of the campaign. Carol Davidson, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, said the 2012 campaign used Facebook to “suck out the whole social graph” and target potential voters. They would then use that data to do things like append their email lists.
When Facebook found out what they were doing, they were “surprised,” she said. But she also claimed they didn’t stop them once they found out: “They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side,” Davidson tweeted.
Clearly, the only reason Facebook is being targeted now, is because the political rivals of Democrats attempted to do the same thing. I'm afraid it is painfully obvious the Democrats and the media are displaying a stunning level of hypocrisy in this instance.
"I would assume if you had that setting turned on that someone at some point has access to your public information in some way," he said.
In other words: I am just the bearer of bad news. The evil people are the people who downloaded the data that I configured for them to do so, and the people who chose settings that I provided which made it easer.
This is all battlespace preparation for his coming testimony on the Hill. Its as if he took your money out of the bank, laid it out neatly in piles on the sidewalk, and claims no responsibility when people came along and helped themselves.
And yet you clicked on the Facebook EULA saying "Yes" to scraping, use of your photos name and likeness (even if on your hard drive and not on Facebook) for advertising or whatever purpose Facebook wants to use it for.
Did you read the EULA before you clicked? Do you check back to read changes? You are a lawyer so if you can't understand it, what hope do us mere mortals have? (I gave up on reading EULA's long ago)
And you get what from Facebook that you could not get from a service that you could own and control?
Why on Earth would anyone sign away all their rights to Facebook?
It is insidious. I have never used it. I have forbidden anyone from using it on my computers. Yet, a couple years ago, before I really laid down the law, my daughter used Facebook a couple times on my desktop computer with a guest account I have set up.
When I found she had done that, I had to spend an hour or two tracking down a bunch of Facebook artifacts that it left on my hard drive. A year later I was still finding droppings.
Facebook is a virus. Worse than most viruses that we can protect against, people willingly let it into their computers and life.
What is it that you get from Facebook that is valuable and could not be replicated, Ann?
Anyone?
John Henry
It is amazing to watch the MSM and the Left attack Zuck.
If Hillary would have won, NONE of this happens.
Deleted my FB account 6 or 7 years ago. Never missed it. Not one bit.
And I don't InstaChat nor SnapGram.
Now GET OF MY LAWN....!
They use the term 'scraped' because 'ass-fucked' is too impolite.
But they are expecting you to Bite The Pillow.
From Wiktionary:
pillow-biter: Etymology
From the trial of Jeremy Thorpe, where Norman Scott, indicating his reluctant participation in receptive homosexual activity, said "I just bit the pillow, I tried not to scream because I was frightened of waking Mrs Thorpe."
Do not wake Zuckerberg. You will only make him angry.
The Germans have a word for this.
I knew someone who worked on spiders to scrape data.
I did not put my real phone number on the profile. I am surprised so many people give out their real birthday and make it public on facebook.
You had to use The Phone Company, and it delivered a phone book that had everyone's name and number in it
It's funny how quickly that changed.
The bottom line is Zukerberg tricked voters into voting for Trump by selling out to some company named Cambridge analytical and that's why Hillary isn't president.
All that mind-tricking.
Anyone with half a brain knows that you are being tracked all over the place on the internet. Cookies sound innocuous and kind of sweet, but that is what they are tracking you with cookie crumbs.
That Facebook was doing this should come as no surprise. How else can they provide a platform and "free" services. Ever hear that there is no such thing as a free lunch?
Perhaps they should have been more upfront about it. Used BIG RED FLASHING FONT for the computer illiterates, which are most of the people who actually use Facebook. BEEP BEEP BEEP>>>WE ARE SPYING ON YOUR EVERY MOVE!!!!! Even that warning likely would not have gotten through to them.
I don't use Facebook or any other instant communication service, social media crappola. I don't have a Smart Phone. In fact, right now I don't have a cell phone at all because I let my "pay by the minute plan" lapse. I don't give my phone number to websites either. Did a check to see what Google knows about me and it pretty much is nothing other than some music videos that I like and they think I am a 35 year old person sex undetermined. (Can't figure out if I am a female or male according to what clues they have been able to glean (HA!)
Yes, this is daily Drudge genius, what a hero!
I am declaring today a Matt Drudge Appreciation Day, where every sip of coffee, coconut water and wine is a toast to this individual who has made such a contribution to honest journalism and the American story.
Consider how different today might look had he never opened all the cans of worms that he did over all these years.
Hurray, Hallelujah and Salud.
"users who had a specific search functionality turned on should 'assume' that their public profile has been scraped" (CNBC):"
Not just scraped, gang-scraped.
""I would assume if you had that setting turned on that someone at some point has access to your public information in some way..."
She Was Asking For It.
The Germans have a word for this.
“Scraped” is way too graphic. In the old days, when a woman was scraped, people said she had a “dusting and cleaning.”
Panderer
Noun
a person who caters to or profits from the weaknesses or vices of others.
Ann,
Have you, or anyone else here looked on Facebook to see what they have on you? I would be interested to see what they have on me but to do that I would need to sign up for an account. It is apparently dozens and dozens of gigabytes for even the most casual user.
I avoid using Google. Never use it for search (Duck Duck Go works just fine.) I use gmail very sparingly. I try to log in only when I need to, for example commenting here and log out after. I DO NOT use Chrome (I like Firefox and, if I need Chrome, Comodo Dragon is a non-Google version) It is impossible to avoid Google completely but I only use it when absolutely necessary.
This has been my practice for 10-15 years.
And still, when I downloaded my Google file, it was almost 3 gigabytes. Lots of YouTube searches going back 10 years. Everything I have ever looked for while I have been logged in.
There were some pictures that I do not recall ever uploading to any cloud service so I have no idea how they got there.
It is pretty scary shit.
Here is an article that details the scope of the problem with Google and explains step by step how to download your data.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5557619/IT-expert-reveals-extent-data-Google-you.html
John Henry
What is this "phone book" of which you speak?
Facebook could disintegrate in a minute if all the users up and left
Yah, that ain't gonna happen. Facebook users are too addicted and Facebook knows it. So whinge and demand Facebook destroy its own business model so it can continue to provide the otherwise free service you're addicted to, only in a way you don't find invasive and offensive. Or something. So the logic goes.
Open up Other Facebook across the street with the attributes you all demand and put Facebook out of business.
I went to the audiologist yesterday. Somehow, Google knows, since I'm getting pitched ads for hearing aids today.
That's just creepy.
If you want an alternative to Facebook, consider setting up your own website.
You can buy a .com domain name from Wix, GoDaddy or a host of other services for $19.95 a year. This includes a basic hosting package with email. You can do a blog that will be yourname.com/blog where you can replicate pretty much everything you do with Facebook.
If you don't need a .com domain, if a .us or the like will do, it is even cheaper. Althouse.club is available for 99 cents.
Dirt simple to set up a website. I did a new one week before last using Wix. it took me less than an hour to do, though I am still fiddling with the content www.smedworx.com or www.smedworks.com
I think Godaddy includes 10-15 email addresses with the basic package. That is your email, on your server (at godaddy) that you control. Google is not reading it.
If you pay for it, you are the customer with customer's rights. If you don't pay for it, you are the product and you and your content are being sold to someone.
John Henry
Blogger DanTheMan said...
I went to the audiologist yesterday. Somehow, Google knows, since I'm getting pitched ads for hearing aids today.
That's just creepy.
Do you have the GPS turned on in your phone?
If so, Google knows to within 5-10 feet where you are at all times. So, yeah. They knew you were at the audiologist. Targeted ads is their whole business model.
Your Google history will trace your steps every day for as far back as you've had the phone.
If you need GPS, spend $100 and buy a Garmin. It will tell you where you are but won't tell anyone else.
John Henry
>>If so, Google knows to within 5-10 feet where you are at all times
I don't have the google app, and don't have an Android phone.
I assume Apple knows where I am all the time. :)
You had to use The Phone Company
Dr. Sidney Schaefer: You know, one thing I learned from my patients... they all hate the phone company. It's interesting; even the stock holders of the phone company hate the phone company!
V.I. Kydor Kropotkin: I know. Bedouins hate the phone company. Matter of fact, I've never been in a country where everybody didn't hate the phone company.
I find the lack of coverage over the same behavior by the Obama campaign rather curious. The Obama campaign was hailed as being genius for doing the exact same thing.
Yes, this is why the left is pissed at Zuck. He let the other side do it.
John, I have a blog that I pay for hosting to "Blue Host" and don't use Google except Gmail for stuff I don't read.
Facebook is good for kids and grandkids.
Thanks for this,
Has easy to follow links showing how to delete info Google has stored
Here is an article that details the scope of the problem with Google and explains step by step how to download your data.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5557619/IT-expert-reveals-extent-data-Google-you.html
I deleted my Facebook account years ago and I only use the gmail account I had to set up to access some client site now only to keep track of bookmarks and comment here. Nevertheless, the data Google has on you - in real time - is pretty amazing:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/all-the-data-facebook-google-has-on-you-privacy
I'm shocked, shocked to find that companies that give away free services can make a lot of money off it.
I love the way Google’s activity in Hillary Clinton’s campaign is Just completely ignored
Can I infer that you don’t have your landline anymore? Back in our old house we lost our land line during a thunderstorm at the very beginning of the Verizon strike in 2016, and discovered that about the only thing we had to live without were calls for political polls and robo-call political ads. Smart move, Verizon workers, to convince your customers that they can have a better life without your services!
Where is Sheryl Sandburg in all this mess? Seems the only grownup in this playground is Leaning Out for awhile.
"If you pay for it, you are the customer with customer's rights. If you don't pay for it, you are the product and you and your content are being sold to someone."
You're still working with a corporation that will put its interests over yours. You think if you give an entity money, you'll be protected? Companies take your money and hurt you all the time? You're just assuming that because they're not completely dependent on an alternative source for income, they will serve your interests? I don't trust that.
In my case, it is impossible to extract my huge blog from Blogger. I could start over and leave the whole archive behind, with 50,000+ posts and hundreds of thousands of comments, but I'm not going to do that. If Google won't serve ads to my site, how is it a solution to get my own site? Google wouldn't serve ads to that either, and I'm not going to do my own ad work. BlogAds doesn't exist anymore in the form that had me sort of involved in attracting and selling the ads. It's just not something I can or would do. I'd be better off getting another job than doing my own ad work!
I don't even like ads on the blog, so if the whole ad thing ended for me, I would just move on. I emphasize Amazon Associates, but I could imagine them cutting me out too, since I criticize and mock the Washington Post almost every day. Then what? There are PayPal donations, which some people do make, and I appreciate it. I think if there were no ads and no Amazon, I'd push for contributions a bit more, and maybe you'd feel they were more important. But the truth is, I blog for the intrinsic value TO ME and I always have and could not do this any other way. I do it for myself and for the reward of having a readership, but I'm not the typical person writing on the web, especially since I don't even have any causes I care about persuading you about... other than to calm down and pay attention.
I’m glad I never had the Messenger setting turned on. I almost did a couple of times, but I thought no, why have people messege me through Facebook, when they can just text me. Seemed redundant. I also went through all my settings a couple of weeks ago and got rid of apps I didn’t even know I had on there.
This all seems to me like positioning for 2020.
Poor old Mark made it known he was considering running for president.
Some of the other candidates have been working hard, behind the scenes, to make sure he is destroyed before he even gets his campaign up and running.
As Zuckerdork might say: "If you are rich and famous, you can grab them by their settings and they won't care."
Some of the other candidates have been working hard, behind the scenes, to make sure he is destroyed before he even gets his campaign up and running.
I doubt it since there's no need. Let's be real here, when it comes to actual politics Zuckerberg doesn't have a chance in hell. He may have convinced himself he has some kind of chance since I'm sure he surrounds himself with lots of sycophants who never nay-say. But he's more delusional than Hillary and about as likable. Most people on the left despise and distrust him, and the greatest PR campaign in history couldn't change that.
"Companies take your money and hurt you all the time?" No, companies that take my money don't "hurt me all the time." Most give me goods and services I need or enjoy. If they were to "hurt me all the time," I would stop using them and they would go out of business.
It is not clear that the morons, i.e., the majority of the world population, who signed up for social media without realizing they were the product, care about their "information" enough to be "hurt all the time." If those same morons had to choose between a pay service with no info sharing of any kind and a free service that commodifies information, guess what they'd pick.
It takes a while for the invisible hand to work it's evolutionary magic on disruptive social platforms. Regression to the mean.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
You're still working with a corporation that will put its interests over yours. You think if you give an entity money, you'll be protected?
Yes, I will be protected in one important sense. Their business model is selling to me and keeping me happy. They make their money from the fees I pay them.
That gives me some protection. It is not perfect but it is a helluva lot better than where the business model is to sell as much of my data as possible to someone else. A business model where it is in their interests to keep me confused and in the dark about this.
I generally trust a company to act in its own best interest. Generally that means satisfying their customers. That is not perfect and sometimes they fail.
Wix, Godaddy, Network Solutions etc will, generally, act to keep me happy and paying. I've been with Network Solutions since the 90's and never had any reason not to trust them or to be unhappy with them. I have a dozen or so GoDaddy domains, mostly just landing pages for things like PRSpaceport.com and/or redirecting to my main site. In 10 years never had any reason to suspect a problem or complain.
Facebook, Google et al can be trusted to act in their best interests and satisfy their customers, which is the people who pay them, not their users.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
John Henry A/K/A "Sir John of the Zika", (non-douchebag)
As for your blog, yes, I understand that you can't shift past stuff over. Nothing to prevent you starting a new, Althouse owned blog though. Keep both running and link between them. Only post on the new one.
I would not worry overmuch about the blog though. As you say, you do not need the money from it so Google doesn't have a lot they can threaten you with other than total deletion. Which they have done to other blogs. And, as you mentioned in another post, there is nothing you can do to get satisfaction. The key word in "customer service" is customer and you are not one, so piss off!
Blogs like this are, by nature, public so there is no privacy issue either.
What you should be worried about is Facebook and all the private info on you that it is sharing. If you are OK with that, it is nothing to me. I don't understand it but we all live our lives by our own lights. I would prefer not to hear any moaning about it though. Still, it is your blog and you can moan if you want to. Or post about shoes, Bob Dylan and fashion, which I would also prefer not to hear about.
This is most definitely NOT a complaint about what you post and how you run the blog. Just a comment on my preferences. I'm here every day, aren't I? You can assume that means that I like it.
As for monetizing, the No Agenda boys (John C Dvorak and Adam Curry) seem to make a decent living soliciting donations from their "producers" as they call their listeners. They are now over 1,000 3 hour shows and 10 years.
Donate $300 and you can be an executive producer of that episode. Donate $1,000 and you become a knight (Sir whoever). $2,000 gets you a barony and so on. They announce all contributions over $50 and my guess is that they generally pull in $4-5,000 per week in contributions. They call it a "Value for value model"
I do like what you write and your choices of topic, generally. But what I really like is the comments section. It is your commenters who, along with you, really make this blog. At least for me. Perhaps we are not "commenters" but are "contributers"?
Perhaps if we gave $1,000, all at once or over time, we could become "Contributing Writers" and be recognized as such on an Althouse page somewhere. Give $2,000 and we could be "contributing editors", $3,000 "Assistant publisher" etc.
I already have a couple contributing writer credits on my CV but a "Contributing writer at Althouse.com" would be kind of cool.
I would be happy to kick in a couple of bucks to read and comment here but I've never even been asked. And if I did, I don't think it would be recognized, would it?
John Henry A/K/A "Sir John of the Zika", (non-douchebag)
Google and facebook harnessed to help democrats is all cool.
Wth all of these "scandals" about social media, perhaps these companies ought to offer a plus service: pay us a monthly subscription and in return we don't keep or sell any of your information. Make lemonade out of lemons.
"The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!"
I still remember, when visiting people in other towns, cracking open their phone books to see if anyone there shared my last name.
Playing devil's advocate here (as opposed to trolling), but has anyone mentioned any downside to this?
I mean, with all this information floating around, has someone been outed? Delicate information being released? Accounts hacked?
Before you mention personal information, know this: there was a service called Lexis-Nexis, that before the internet kept track of people's personal records (that were publicly available).
For example, when I looked myself up on it, it had my address in Baltimore where I lived during the early '80s. It was a place I rented from the company I worked for (in that, the boss owned it). No paperwork, no public records except the phone company, but there it was.
Anything comparable with Facebook?
Aw shit, Zukerberg has bigger tits than I do. Another reason to hate him.
The April Fool's Elon Musk joke was the best ever: Musk buys FB then deletes it.
GO TEAM MUSK!
Go-Daddy Marines vets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz7xWCR4KWU&ytbChannel=null
Allie Ghaman writing in The Washington Post:
Let’s play the Price is Right. What’s a Facebook membership worth? $7 per month? $5? $1? You can actually put a dollar figure on how much we’re worth to the social network. Facebook collected $82 in advertising for each member in North America last year.
It’s a trick question, because Facebook has always been free. But what if there was a way you could pay to remove the eerie targeted ads, stop it from tracking every little thing you do and make your data more secure? Call it “Facebook Plus.” Maybe we’d be better off paying for Facebook like a subscription than we are paying with our personal data — which, let’s be honest, seems free but isn’t. Might that restore our trust?
Anyone peeved about the social network’s recent privacy lapses might scoff at the idea of handing Facebook money. There’s no indication that Facebook is ever going to charge, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week said he’s focused on “a free service that everyone can use.” But this spring’s revelations about Cambridge Analytica, threats to democracy and data scraping at a global scale have offered a terrifying wake-up about the devil’s bargain at the heart of Facebook: We don’t pay for the product because we are the product.
A few days ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Facebook’s got it backward. Asked on MSNBC what he’d do if he were in Zuckerberg’s shoes, he said, “I wouldn’t be in this situation.” Consumers can pay for privacy, he said, and asserted that Apple makes better products because it sells them directly to consumers rather than selling users to advertisers.
The media are scared of Facebook, because if the presidential election really can be bought for $100K on Facebook, then the media will lose billions in advertising revenue. That they would believe that an election can be bought for $100K just reveals their stupidity.
I've heard about guys like you reading those books...whips and boots and things. But an axe? That's freaky. Call me a cab. I'm outta here.
- Just some old climbing equipment.
- You climb?
I used to, but I'm retired now.
- Maybe you'll climb again someday.
- I doubt it. You never know. Sometimes people do things they thought they'd never do again. Like rape, for instance. I thought I'd given up rape, but I've changed my mind.
Clint Eastwood, The Eiger Sanction (1975)
Prof: Under Settings (see Privacy), there is an option related to how people can find you. There you will find email and phone options. Note: You will not be able to select "No" option. There is no such possibility. People can find you via everywhere or friends or friends of friends, etc. No matter what: Zuck wants to scrap everyone.
NB: Reminder: I said it first: Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schemer, and POTUS Warren/Harris/Sanders! VPOTUS: Gillibrand, Harris, or Booker.
Cheers!
Scraping of public profile? All that means is someone besides Facebook is looking at the publicly available web page. Every search engine does this (except Facebook since they've already got the data, no need to scrape). If your public profile has never beens scraped, then no search engine will provide a link to your public profile as a search result.
Now, having your phone number or email address in your public profile might be a problem, maybe you only wanted a few friends to know them.
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