[ April 19, 2024 ]
All Zuckerberg cared about was these documents not seeing the light of day. Who the hell does he think he is that the American judicial system should protect such a scoundrel? Worse still, a U.S. judge had ordered the papers remain secret, but a British MP defied the order.
In one of the emails, Zuckerberg candidly admits that Facebook’s interests aren’t always aligned with those of its users and the broader world.
Zuckerberg and co. planned to sell phone call records, charge app developers 250K per year to access users’ data — evil. Facebook is evil. On a side note:
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The left demonized great men of industry like J. P Morgan Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockfeller — great men of great achievement — while these trolls whose crowing achievement is writing code have systematically destroyed our freedoms and public trust:
Tech companies such as Google and Facebook are also utilities of sorts that provide essential services. They depend on the free use of public airwaves. Yet they are subject to little oversight; they simply make up their own rules as they go along. Antitrust laws prohibit one corporation from unfairly devouring its competition, capturing most of its market, and then price-gouging as it sees fit without fear of competition. Google has all but destroyed its search-engine competitors in the same manner that Facebook has driven out competing social media.
Why are huge tech companies seemingly exempt from the rules that older corporations must follow?
First, their CEOs wisely cultivate the image of hipsters. The public sees them more as aging teenagers in T-shirts, turtlenecks, and flip-flops than as updated versions of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, or other robber barons of the past.
Second, the tech industry’s hierarchy is politically progressive. In brilliant marketing fashion, the Internet, laptops, tablets, and smartphones have meshed with the hip youth culture of music, television, the movies, universities, and fashion. Think Woodstock rather than Wall Street.
Corporate spokesmen at companies such as Twitter and YouTube brag about their social awareness, especially on issues such as radical environmentalism, identity politics, and feminism. Given that the regulatory deep state is mostly a liberal enterprise, the tech industry is seen as an ally of federal bureaucrats and regulators. Think more of Hollywood, the media, and universities than Exxon, General Motors, Koch Industries, and Philip Morris.
British politician releases 250 pages of seized Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg emails which reveal they wanted to charge companies at least $250,000 per year for access to users’ data
- British MP Damian Collins published more than 250 pages of seized documents
- They reveal plans to offer firms access to user data based on their spending
- Included are emails from Zuckerberg himself where he talks about restricting access to user data as a way to leverage money out of app developers
- U.S. judge had ordered the papers remain secret, but Collins defied the order
- Facebook planned to let its android app read users’ call records in which it admitted was a ‘pretty high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective.’
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg approved a decision to block Twitter’s app Vine from accessing users’ friends lists because it was a competitor
- Mr Zuckerberg discussed with executives the consequences of letting certain apps and not others access Facebook friends data
- Mr Zuckerberg said he was ‘sceptical’ that apps he let access Facebook users’ data would pass this data on, as happened in the Cambridge Analytica scandal
- Facebook denied any wrongdoing and said documents are taken out of context
By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline and Tim Sculthorpe, Deputy Political Editor For Mailonline, 5 December 2018 | Updated: 15:08 EST, 5 December 2018
A huge dossier of secret documents about the Facebook data scandal was published by British MPs today.
MP Damian Collins used parliamentary privilege to seize the documents from the founder of US app developer Six4Three who had them as part of a legal case against Facebook.
In an extraordinary move when founder Ted Kramer was passing through London in November, Mr Collins had him escorted to Parliament and threatened to imprison him if he didn’t hand them over. He promptly did so.
The trove of emails and private messages – which a US judge had ordered to be kept secret – reveal how Facebook let companies including Lyft, Bumble, and AirBnB have special access to user data if they spent big on advertising.
The documents also reveal:
Facebook planned to let its android app read users’ call records in which it admitted was a ‘pretty high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective’
Facebook aggressively stopped rivals from accessing its users’ data to maintain dominance, causing many apps to fail
CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally approved a decision to block Twitter’s app Vine from accessing users’ Facebook friends lists
Mr Zuckerberg said he was ‘sceptical’ that apps with access Facebook users’ data would pass this data on, as then happened in the Cambridge Analytica scandal
Facebook used app Onavo to spy on users’ app usage, apparently without their knowledge, to identify competitor appsFacebook has taken a hammering on stock markets in recent months but was saved from an immediate reaction because the New York Stock Exchange was closed on Wednesday for George H.W. Bush’s funeral.
However, further losses were expected on Thursday when it reopens.
The messages discuss changes that Facebook made to its site in 2015 which limited the amount of data that certain apps could extract from the Facebook friends of their users.
The ThisIsYourDigitalLife app exploited this feature to get information from millions of Facebook profiles despite only having around 300,000 direct users, which it later sold to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
In emails sent ahead of the changes being implemented, Facebook senior staff discussed ‘whitelisting’ several apps – including Lyft, Tinder, and AirBnB – meaning they would keep full access to friend data, after changes in 2015 theoretically stopped friend data from being exchanged.
The emails make it clear that access to such data would depend on how much the companies were paying Facebook.
In one particularly blunt email sent by Konstantinos Papamiltidas, Facebook’s director of platform partnerships, he said: ‘Communicate in one-go to all apps that don’t spend that those permission[s] will be revoked.
‘Communicate to the rest that they need to spend on NEKO [a platform that Facebook uses to sell advertising] $250k a year to maintain access to the data.’
In another email from Mark Zuckerberg himself, sent in 2012, he lays out his vision for how Facebook will generate money in the future, including leveraging developers for access to data.
He writes: ‘I’m getting more on board with locking down some parts of platform, including friends data and potentially email addresses for mobile apps.
Collins took the decision to publish the documents after Mark Zuckerberg refused to testify directly to the investigation he is leading into fake news
‘Without limiting distribution or access to friends who use this app, I don’t think we have any way to get developers to pay us at all…’
In another email, sent around the same time, he discusses charging developers a fee for accessing user data – which he says should ‘cost a lot of money’ – which they can repay to Facebook by buying their advertising or using their payments service.
He writes: ‘A basic model could be: Login with Facebook is always free, pushing content to Facebook is always free, reading anything, including friends, costs a lot of money. Perhaps on the order of $0.10/user each year.
‘For the money that you owe, you can cover it in any of the following ways: Buy[ing] ads from us in neko or another system.
What do the Facebook emails say?
1. Facebook planned to let its android app read users’ call records in which it admitted was a ‘pretty high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective’
Michael LeBeau (Facebook product manager) wrote on 4 February 2015:
‘As you know all the growth team is planning on shipping a permissions update on Android at the end of this month. They are going to include the ‘read call log’ permission… This is a pretty high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective but it appears that the growth team will charge ahead and do it.’
2. Facebook aggressively stopped rivals from accessing its users’ data to maintain dominance, causing many apps to fail. CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally approved a decision to block Twitter’s app Vine from accessing users’ Facebook friends lists.
Justin Osofksy (Facebook vice president) wrote on 24 January 2012: ‘Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video… Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today. We’ve prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision.’
CEO Mark Zuckerberg replied: ‘Yup, go for it.’
3. Mr Zuckerberg said he was ‘sceptical’ that apps with access Facebook users’ data would pass this data on, as then happened in the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2016
In a 2012 email to Sam Lessin, the company’s former VP of Project Management, Mr Zuckerberg wrote:
‘I’m generally skeptical that there is as much data leak strategic risk as you think. I agree there is clear risk on the advertiser side, but I haven’t figured out how that connects to the rest of the platform. I think we leak info to developers, but I just can’t think if any instances where that data has leaked from developer to developer and caused a real issue for us. Do you have examples of this?’
4. Facebook CEOs planned to provide user data to apps which paid Facebook a certain amount
Konstantinos Papamiltidas, Facebook’s director of platform partnerships, ordered: ‘Communicate to all apps that don’t spend that those permission[s] will be revoked.
‘Communicate to the rest that they need to spend on NEKO [a platform that Facebook uses to sell advertising] $250k a year to maintain access to the data.’
‘Run our ads in your app or website (canvas apps already do this). Use our payments. Sell your items in our Karma store.
‘Or if the revenue we get from those doesn’t add up to more that the fees you owe us, then you just pay us the fee directly.’
Mr Collins, the chairman of Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said: ‘Facebook have clearly entered into whitelisting agreements with certain companies, which meant that after the platform changes in 2014/15 they maintained full access to friends data.
‘It is not clear that there was any user consent for this, nor how Facebook decided which companies should be whitelisted or not.
‘It is clear that increasing revenues from major app developers was one of the key drivers behind the… changes at Facebook.
‘The idea of linking access to friends data to the financial value of the developers relationship with Facebook is a recurring feature of the documents.’
Defending his decision to publish the papers, which contravenes a California judge who ruled they should remain a secret, he added that there was a ‘considerable public interest’.
He said Facebook had failed to give ‘straight answers’ to his inquiry after Mark Zuckerberg failed to show up to a grand committee featuring politicians from eight countries last week.
Mr Collins seized the documents from the owner of a controversial app maker Six4Three last month using his parliamentary privilege.
The dossier includes emails written by Mr Zuckerberg himself, as well as hundreds of documents about privileged access to data given by Facebook to certain applications.
Mr Collins said: ‘I believe there is considerable public interest in releasing these documents.
Where do the Six4Three Facebook papers come from and why is Mr Collins allowed to publish them?The documents seized by Collins and his committee stem from a court case being heard in California between app developer Six4Three and Facebook.
Ted Kramer, who owns the developer, launched a suit against Facebook after the tech company restricted to data that one of his apps – Pinkini – could access.
The app was designed to identify bikini photos among albums posted by friends on Facebook, and the restrictions effectively killed it.
As part of the lawsuit, Kramer accuses Facebook of encouraging developers to build apps based around access to data that it then withdrew.
He also alleges that Zuckerberg sold expensive ads to developers in return for long-term access to the data.
This form of access was later exploited by Cambridge Analytica in an attempt to affect elections.
As part of his case, Kramer got his hands on documents – said to include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Zuckerberg – apparently showing they knew about issues around the privacy of user data.
Facebook fought for months to keep the documents secret, and was ultimately vindicated when a California judge ruled in its favor.
But now Collins has published the documents because he is outside of US jurisdiction and protected in his role as a minister heading up an investigation.
‘They raise important questions about how Facebook treats users data, their policies for working with app developers, and how they exercise their dominant position in the social media market.
‘We don’t feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which is why we are releasing the documents.
‘We need a more public debate about the rights of social media users and the smaller businesses who are required to work with the tech giants. I hope that our committee investigation can stand up for them.’
The leak relates to a court case between Facebook, an app developer called Six4Three and its app Pinkini, which allowed users to find bikini photos among images uploaded by their friends.
The app was effectively killed when Facebook updated its privacy settings in 2015, and the company is now suing the social media giant.
As part of the legal proceedings, Six4Three was handed a trove of documents from Facebook related to its case, but was told to keep them private.
They were seized by Collins using an obscure parliamentary rule as a Six4Three executive was passing through London in November.
Reacting to the documents being published, a Facebook spokesman said: ‘As we’ve said many times, the documents Six4Three gathered for their baseless case are only part of the story and are presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context.
‘We stand by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends’ data with developers.
‘Like any business, we had many of internal conversations about the various ways we could build a sustainable business model for our platform.
‘But the facts are clear: we’ve never sold people’s data.’
Mr Zuckerberg was ’empty chaired’ by the grand committee last week after sent executive Richard Allan for the grilling instead.
Facebook had demanded the Six4Three papers published today be handed back without being opened by MPs or published.
Six4Three managing director Ted Kramer gave the documents to British authorities after being warned he could be banned from leaving the UK if he refused.
Mr Zuckerberg was ’empty chaired’ by the grand committee last week after sent executive Richard Allan for the grilling insteadIn an extraordinary sequence of events, he ignored three demands for the emails before being personally served by a Serjeant at Arms and meeting Mr Collins in his Commons office.
MPs drew up the ‘unprecedented’ order to seize the documents after discovering that Mr Kramer was due to visit the UK.
Mr Kramer has claimed in court documents he ‘panicked’ while in the meeting with Mr Collins and his staff, meaning he copied documents from his cloud storage and onto a USB stick.
What are the accusations against Facebook?
Facebook is facing allegations from all over the work that it has been used to spread ‘fake news’, interfere with elections, and peddle hate.
It is also facing hugely damaging revelations of privacy data breaches among its accounts.
Here are some of the controversies it has been embroiled in:
‘Fake news’ and Russia
Facebook has come under the spotlight amid claims that Russian accounts used the platform to spread ‘fake news’ during the 2016 Brexit referendum.
In America, Russians accounts have been accused of using Facebook to harm Hilary Clinton’s prospects of being elected over Donald Trump.
In the UK, some have claimed that misleading information was used to promote Brexit in the run up to the 2016 referendum.
Cambridge Analytica Scandal:
The data of around 87 million Facebook users was harvested by the company Cambridge Analytica (CA).
It has been claimed CA used the information to assess peoples’ personalities and come up with political strategies to sway voters to back Brexit and Donald Trump.
Spread of extremism and hate
Facebook has been repeatedly criticised for not being quick enough to take extremist content down from its site.
Critics have warned that Facebook has become a safe haven for extremists who peddle hate and try to recruit jihadis to kill and maim.
But after seizing the documents, Mr Collins said: ‘Under UK law and parliamentary privilege we can publish papers if we choose to.
‘As you know we have asked many questions of Facebook about its policies on sharing user data.
‘I believe these documents may contain important information.’
In a statement issued after the committee hearing today, Facebook said of the claim that an engineer had flagged concerns about Russians trawling the site for data: ‘The engineers who had flagged these initial concerns subsequently looked into this further and found no evidence of specific Russian activity.’
Lord Allan has also urged Mr Collins not to reveal the documents. He warned Collins yesterday in an email that the documents are ‘sub judice before a court in California’ and are ‘sealed’.
Lord Allan is a Liberal Democrat peer and unlike previous Facebook witnesses at the House of Commons is an expert in Parliament’s procedures.
He spent eight years as MP for Sheffield Hallam and was succeeded by Nick Clegg, who has since been hired by Facebook since he lost the seat last year.
A US judge in California had ordered the files, obtained from Facebook via a legal discovery process, could not be revealed to the public earlier this year.
Mr Zuckerberg has repeatedly refused to attend the UK Parliament saying that he has already testified to Congress in the US and before the European Union.
‘It is not possible for Mr Zuckerberg to be available to all parliaments,’ the firm said.
Facebook said after the documents were seized: ‘The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure.
‘We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook.
‘We have no further comment.’
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51 Comments
5 years ago
They do not your business. They want your money, that’s all.
5 years ago
Remind me again whom Zuckerberg has harmed? The MP is a kapo.
5 years ago
Reply to
aemoreira1981
Needing a reminder means you can’t figure it out on your own. Maybe this is not the website for you. Perhaps SpongeBob Squarepants is more your speed?
5 years ago
“British MP Damian Collins published more than 250 pages of seized documents.”
THANK YOU! We never would have known. We would be left with speculation.
Let’s see how the corrupt cabal handles this. Maybe it will be the same way as the ILLEGAL FISA warrant to pursue Trump only reversed. Zuckerberg’s entire business model is based on SELLING YOUR INFORMATION TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER. You have no privacy. You represent dollars to him as well as censoring out conservatives.
Zuckerberg Classmate Reveals the Lie That Started His Entire Empire
BY BENJAMIN ARIE
APRIL 19, 2018 AT 1:20PM
“You’re in charge of your own data. There’s nothing to worry about.”
….
Julia Carrie Wong was among the first people to join Facebook back in 2004. She was also a classmate of Zuckerberg at Harvard University, where the social network famously began.
“I was one of Facebook’s first users. I shouldn’t have trusted Mark Zuckerberg,” declared Wong in a recent feature published by The Guardian, a widely respected British newspaper.
…
“Zuckerberg was lying then and he’s lying now,” she declared. “We do not have ‘complete control’ and we never have, as evidenced by the fact that even people who never signed up for Facebook have ‘shadow profiles’ created without their consent.”
“He has been getting away with this same spin for 14 years, two months, and eight days,” the former classmate of Zuckerberg continued.
As evidence of that “spin,” Wong recalled instant messages that were sent between Mark Zuckerberg and one of her Harvard friends during the early days of Facebook.
“During those first few weeks of Facebook’s existence, while he was assuring his fellow college students that we could trust him with our identities, he had a private conversation on instant messenger with a friend,” wrote Wong. “That conversation was subsequently leaked, and published by Silicon Valley Insider. It is as follows:”
ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb f**ks
Wong then launched into her most scorching criticism of Zuckerberg and Facebook yet.
“In the intervening years, I’ve learned that Zuckerberg values his own privacy so much that he has security guards watching his trash, that he bought four houses surrounding his own house to avoid having neighbors, that he sued hundreds of Hawaiians to sever their claim to tiny plots of land within his massive Kauai estate, and that he secretly built tools to prevent further private messages from coming back to haunt him,” she ranted.
“What I haven’t learned, or seen any sign of, is that he has changed his opinion of the intelligence of his users,” Wong concluded. “It’s Zuckerberg’s world, and we’re all just a bunch of dumb f***s living in it.”
Social networks certainly have value, but they can also become colossal nightmares. Whether the pros outweigh the cons for Americans and conservatives on Facebook remains to be seen.
…
https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/zuckerberg-classmate-accuses-lie/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation
5 years ago
Set your expectations accordingly.
Facebook Goes on a Hiring Spree for Washington Lobbyists
By Naomi Nix , Billy House , and Bill Allison
March 27, 2018, 4:00 AM EDT
………….
Facebook Inc. is on a hiring spree in Washington as the social network bulks up its ranks of lobbyists in the midst of a privacy scandal that cuts to the heart of its business model.
…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-27/facebook-in-hiring-spree-for-washington-lobbyists-amid-scandal
5 years ago
Yes, let’s worry about the RUSSIANS influencing our elections – LOL!!!!
FACEBOOK QUIETLY HID WEBPAGES BRAGGING OF ABILITY TO INFLUENCE ELECTIONS
By Sam Biddle
March 14 2018, 1:08 p.m.
WHEN MARK ZUCKERBERG was asked if Facebook had influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, the founder and CEO dismissed the notion that the site even had such power as “crazy.” It was a disingenuous remark. Facebook’s website had an entire section devoted to touting the “success stories” of political campaigns that used the social network to influence electoral outcomes. That page, however, is now gone, even as the 2018 congressional primaries get underway.
More at the links:
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/14/facebook-election-meddling/
5 years ago
Hitler loved spying on people too as did Obama.
http://www.washingtontimesreporter.com/storyimage/IP/20140314/NEWS/140319385/AR/0/AR-140319385.jpg
5 years ago
Reply to
felix1999
Good one, Felix; Zuckerberg has our politicians by the you-knows; specifically, Obama, Clinton, the Democrats and the Progressives of the EU. Liberalism is not Liberalism; it is a wanton endeavor to create a totalitarian or collectivist world. Zuckerberg revered by the left and despised by the right deserves a serving, a heavy dose of Karma. There is no subtlety, the arrogance of this cabal an intermingling of politics and the perfidy, deceit of Zuckerberg’s Facebook and others of its like.
Let’s hope that the release of these emails triggers the Karma effect on this repellent man.
5 years ago
Even though this has got nothing to do w. bigotry, article emphasizes facebook should not mess around w. Pamela.
5 years ago
Agree. And Merkel govt funded Pro-jihadi Left/Liberals run propaganda to create more
sex slaves out of little children like in UK https://tinyurl.com/yd9jo5mf
Do these scumbags have any conscience ?
5 years ago
How ironic, Zuckerberg sells his users personal info for big bucks while getting a court order to stop people finding out about his dirty tactics.
I’d love to see deep congressional investigations into all the big social media sites including Google, Twitter and YouTube as well and have them regulated just like any utility.
They promised to use their sites as ‘neutral public forums’ but obviously broke that promise and operate as fascist tyrannical regimes, esp Twitter. They have been getting away with censoring the truth for far too long so hopefully this gains traction.
5 years ago
Reply to
Ban Islam
Screw the courts in California. They are Communist bastians protecting their partners in destroying all forms privacy in the USA.
5 years ago
Phony greenhorn Jew. Spoilt brats like Macroni, Truedo-do and the Nerogro sodomite. Women and children are running the West.
Punishment by Yahuah for your sins.
These punks know nothing, have done nothing, yet think they are something, None have ever worked a day in their life. God help you if we ever get attacked. These fatherless morons will sell you out to save their own soul.
5 years ago
Apps spying users’ data should be illegal.
Ethical values (justice, love, truth, human rights, ecology) are not a preference but necessary guidelines to make our lives on earth work successfully.
It must stop that unethical companies like Facebook & governments
– censor truth in service of Muhammadist organisations (who enslave Africans)
– alter our food with chemicals, hormones, antibiotics
– pollute the oceans with mercury & plastic (read “fish you should never eat” on DrAxe.com)
– don’t provide a product range that is cultivated ecological best quality basic.
5 years ago
And which one of obumass’s judge’s was it this time????
5 years ago
Reply to
aemoreira1981
LOL … for once I agree with you. Albeit we cannot be “sure” nothing was wrong in the abstract without a thorough review of this case, but…
Almost certainly the judge issued a standard confidentiality order regarding any evidence produced during discovery in the Six4three case. And Kramer quite rightfully did not deliberately reveal the docs in this case until he was under duress.
Unlike a UK ‘gag’ order or a Wisconsin ‘gag’ order – both of which are intended to prevent victims or defendants from exposing judicial abuse or malicious prosecution – discovery is confidential for the public purpose of protecting the community from malicious and frivolous litigation for the mere purpose of finding ‘dirt’ on the target.
I have been – and still am – subject to many of these orders, and am quite familiar with the process which is – usually – non-controversial, and benign.
BTW – I think Kramer still may be subject to legal and/or civil sanctions for turning over the docs on Facebook. If he is ‘good’ with the Left in Cali, his conduct may be excused, but if they want to ‘get him,’ he may not be. For the record: In all of the orders I’ve seen, revealing discovery under threat of legal action by law enforcement protects the ‘leaker’ from any sanctions or other civil penalties – but those clauses, though written broadly, do not explicitly mention foreign state actors. So ironically, Kramer could still be liable for a whopping cash settlement to Facebook for violating an order he probably has not read, does not understand, and which should have protected him in this case.
Also ironically – and I can say this – most Tech defendants would love to ‘leak’ their cases to the press for the simple reason that in most cases their wrongdoing, even when exposed, shows that they lacked an element necessary to prove “criminal” intent. These guys are mostly geeks and software geniuses and they are not your typical criminal types.
5 years ago
What I find amazing, and correct me if I am wrong, is that no class actions have been filed against Facebook and Google for the wanton invasion of their user’s personal information and privacy. Why is that? It appears to me that numerous serious torts are committed every day by these crooks who mine our most sensitive information and sell it to the highest bidder. The way to stop this illegality is to get a class judgment whose payment will put them out of business for good. why has this not been done? Can anyone out there explain why the thousands of class action attorneys have ignored this rather obvious class action, which would be welcomed by millions of people in the USA and throughout the world. We Need to join together and put these digital peeping-toms out of business,or at least to force them to change their business model.
5 years ago
Reply to
John Acord
John, let me add this to your post – for those reading the thread:
What forum would you pick? The Eastern District of Texas – located in Marshall – might consent to certifying the class, but most courts in the nation would never agree to certify the class for the simple reason that ostensibly it can be argued that the class gave consent to data mining their private information both actively by agreeing to the terms and conditions of the adhesion contract and passively by posting their data in a public or semi-public forum. These actions could be construed to waive any ‘harm’ done by revealing personal information to advertisers or data miners since the revelations were offered by the individual and with his consent.
In other words, we should all know – or have a reasonable expectation – that such information will be shared. A reasonable counter argument could be made that a limited class could be certified of persons who have a reasonable expectation that a social media firm will not ‘dox’ them for the purpose of exposing them to criminal activity, bullying, or harassment.
But even getting a limited class certified for limited purposes of protecting users from crime is likely to be difficult – since the Left-leaning judges do not care about crime and do want SM Tech cos. to be free to discriminate against conservatives. Meanwhile – conservative judges know that – at least in theory – individuals who are doxed and/or otherwise exposed to criminal activity do have a right of action against the Tech players who mishandled their identity data – including content – and such classes have been certified at least with regards to banking institutions and personal financial data.
John’s question then can be answered by either 1) the judges do not know or understand what’s going on and how current laws can be deployed to certify a class for the ‘harm’ of privacy invasion or, more likely, 2) they do not give a flip.
5 years ago
Reply to
Dan Knight
Please, point out to me where anyone gave consent to have their search histories compiled and sold to all types of third parties to create a marketing profile? Just Because I have a window in my bedroom does not allow a peeping-tom the right to view the room. where is he warning and waiver signed by Facebook and Google users that all of their activities would be tracked,compiled and sold?
why is this necessary for I have spent millions on Google advertising for PPC. I never only offered an ad that people could click on when they made a relevant search. Why do these companies need more than that?
5 years ago
Reply to
John Acord
Again – it could be construed from the adhesion contracts, and it can be assumed from using any social media platform.
Don’t shoot the messenger. I’ve been through cases where we tried certifying classes – and everyone of them failed. It’s not as easy as it may seem.
5 years ago
Reply to
Dan Knight
I never thought it would be easy as these companies have billions of dollars and huge influence, but so did the tobacco companies. Perhaps, a fund could be set up to finance such an action? No one person should shoulder the burden especially where the harm is so wide-spread.
5 years ago
Reply to
John Acord
Yes, you’re right. The tobacco companies successfully resisted for decades after the cat was out the bag on the basis of ‘consent.’ They finally lost b/c a well-connected law firm in Boston got the cert. I read those cases in law school, and it still chaps … how long it took to define ‘smokers’ as a class. Unbelievable.
5 years ago
Reply to
Dan Knight
R.J. Reynolds saw it coming and invested in textiles. Specifically cotton quilting fabrics.
5 years ago
Reply to
John Acord
Break them up, if the gov did it to oil, telephone and railroads. it could do it here. the gov IS complicit
This is interstate commerce.
5 years ago
Mark Zuckerberg is dedicated to the destruction of America. Zuckerberg wants to flood America with muslims and illegals. Zuckerberg supports those who are molesting children.
5 years ago
Time to do to FAKEBOOK what was done to MA-BELL! HOLD sukabe personally monetarily responsible for any ILLEGAL actions of HIS making which break any SUPREME Law of the LAND .
5 years ago
Put Zuckerberg in jail until Facebook policies are changed to protect users and they are able to demonstrate the changes have actually been made. Hold the code writers responsible for mining data and put them in jail also.Investigate to find out if there is collusion between Facebook, Google, and the NSA.
5 years ago
Indeed, you are bang on, Hussars.
5 years ago
Oh, brother … so many wrongs here, it’s hard to find a ‘right’ …
But hopefully this will blow away a lot of the naivety concerning social media among both the lefty-drones and the right-leaning idealists.
The real world is a messy place and anyone claiming they want a ‘free’ market or ‘fair’ fight or ‘level’ playing field has to admit that someone needs to guard the hen house – and someone needs to guard the wolves guarding the hen house.
Otherwise – it’s just an open season on everyone’s content except the criminals and Leftists – pardon the pleonasm.
5 years ago
GD zuckTheCuck AND the corrupt us govt!
5 years ago
I’ve been permanently banned from Fakebook and not told why. All the message said that popped up in my face was that I had done something against Fakebook policies. And I’m OLD and rarely posted ANYTHING other than REPOSTING what others had posted! Fakebook truly sucks mud and should be dismantled or heavily regulated!
5 years ago
Reply to
Dorrie Gillingham
It isn’t difficult to create a new account. New name, new email, landline phone number instead of mobile (if at all necessary, maybe not) then off you go.
I have closed my Google account and now use duckduckgo. They say they do not track you and it does for me everything Google did.
As for FB there quite a few alternatives,
Diaspora 2010 Around 50,000 active users Ad-free Data can be hosted externally and privately on a private server
Ello 2014 No official data figures, estimates of between 1.5 and 4 million registered users Ad-free No data is given to ad operators
EyeEM 2011 Around 22 million users Ad-free. Users can (voluntarily) offer their own photos on the site’s stock photo marketplace for a share in the revenue. Terms and conditions of data protection conform to stricter German laws because the startup is based in Germany
Path 2010 Around 4 million users Personalized advertising Recurring issues with data protection have left Path heavily criticized in the public eye. New policies promise to change this
Vero 2015 Over 3 million registered users Ad-free No personal data is passed onto third parties; Private telephone number required.
They are just a few.
5 years ago
Reply to
Badger
I only HAVE a landline phone. And I have NO desire to waste time creating another Facebook account. I’m glad to be gone from it. Zuckerburg did me a favor by freeing up my time! I joined Gab, but only go there 5 minutes a day. I’m DONE with social media.
5 years ago
Reply to
Dorrie Gillingham
Try Minds for Youtube style vids, still a little buggy but safe.
5 years ago
I have been banned by FB several times,had my payment processing shut down a number of times and NOW Yahoo has taken down my Silver Bullet Gun Oil .net and .com websites completely.
Not to worry,I’ll be back up and running again shortly.
Guerilla warfare is second nature to Marines at times.
Zuckerberg is a weak cuck.
Leftists are weak,pathetic losers unable to stand on their own.
Zuckerberg leads the pack there.
Semper Fi
Silver Bullet Gun Oil….On Amazon
5 years ago
Reply to
Silver Bullet Gun Oil
The best of luck to you! We The People have reached a tipping point of being FED UP with the censoring and other BS!
5 years ago
Mark Zuckerberg is a “Twitt”!
5 years ago
These “great men of industry,” J. P Morgan Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockfeller, are GLOBALISTS and just as bad as Zuckerberg, if not worse, in fact, right up here with Soros.
