News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Facebook Has No First Amendment Right to Send Unauthorized Texts, Says Court. Parent comment

Re:Facebook Has No First Amendment Right to Send Unauthorize... by algesten on Sunday February 12, 2017 @09:35AM (#13628483)
Before Apple put the address book contacts behind permissions, facebook downloaded the entire thing, without asking, to their servers.

I know this, because I make a very clear distinction between work and non-work data, facebook is non-work, so I will never have colleagues or work related contacts on facebook.

Suddenly one day, out of the blue, I get a facebook "friend suggestion" for a boss I had many years back. There's absolutely _no way_ there are any contact paths from my facebook friends to this person.

The only thing I had done was (reluctantly) installing the facebook mobile app. I researched it and found other people had experienced the same thing. The app simply took your entire address book and started matching up "friends" using that.

WhatsApp seems to do the same today.

Facebook is an evil company that absolutely will take any data they can get their hands on.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook Has No First Amendment Right to Send Unauthorize... by andreigheorghe on Sunday February 12, 2017 @11:19AM (#13628987)
Have you considered that it might have happened the other way around? Your boss had you in their contacts list, allowed Facebook to import it, and the number / email he had matched your account, so Facebook then knew there's a likely connection between the two of you, suggesting the friendship to both of you?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook Has No First Amendment Right to Send Unauthorize... by tedunangst on Sunday February 12, 2017 @12:34PM (#13629405)
No, no one ever considers a Facebook, LinkedIn, et al, suggestion started because the other party uploaded their contacts. It's only and always because their app spied on you, they hacked into your email, etc.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook Has No First Amendment Right to Send Unauthorize... by tracker1 on Sunday February 12, 2017 @04:14PM (#13630883)
Most of my suggestions seem to be people I either went to HS with (mutual contacts), or via FB groups... though there's the obvious bot requests, and an occasional wtf is that?
[ Parent | on HN ]