Hikergirl
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2016
I don’t think a lot of people knew, or still don’t know, the absolute depth of information being collected or that it was being sold. I was fine knowing that everything I put up on a wall was fair game or everything I liked or shared....I get concerned that FB (and other apps- FB is the one “caught” now but it’s widespread) are also sharing that information.
I think a lot of people assume FB determined you were looking to buy new bedroom furniture so they sent ads your way from furniture stores and were telling advertisers that they got targeted information to 3000 furniture buyers right at the point they were actively buying. That’s very different from taking all of your info gleaned from internet searches, messages, and following your location and selling it to a furniture company.
Using furniture is really small stakes, but imagine you have a medical condition that you would like to keep private. FB knows from you sending a PM to your best friend that you’re concerned about your condition, they see you searching for info on treatment, looking at illness support pages- from all of that they figure out that you are HIV positive. What if they then sold that information to a company that screens job applicants. You have posted NOTHING about having HIV and you thought that was between you, your doctor, and the friend you spoke to and yet now it’s out there for anyone willing to mine the data.
That’s the line FB crossed- they collected what people thought was non public information on you and sold all that raw data to another firm that could then manipulate it to learn about you, and then potentially could sell it off again and again.
Nothing you do online is private, nothing. If you are using FB's tool to send "private" messages then that info is only private in the sense that you aren't sending to the rest of your friends. It is not private to FB, they "own" it, and they can do what they want with it as long as it is legal.
I guess I thought it was just common knowledge that if you want something to remain private, you don't put it out there online.
This is the price we pay in order to be connected to everyone everywhere and anytime.