There's a difference between selling user data and using user data to target ads to specific user groups.

It's not like I get an Excel file with user data if I advertise on FB. All I can do is use FB's interface to select interests, age or an array of other information to target my ads.

The ones selling user data are Equifax and friends.

Ironically, the popular media has historically been the one of the largest sources of consumer data for ages through magazine subscriptions. They sell their data to brokers like Axciom (and many others) who package it and literally sell it for cash for anywhere from a few pennies per record on up depending on what features you want. Just addresses, addresses and phone numbers, number of cars owned, family make-up, age, etc.

Facebook is honestly quite humane in comparison. No one knows this stuff exists except direct marketers, which is why it doesn't get any attention.

Facebook gets much larger quantities of mundane information like you clicked on a news article, or you went on vacation to a certain place, etc. It also has social graph information that data brokers don't typically have like "is close friends with a woman with an upcoming birthday." That is a real ad targeting example you can do on Facebook.

Sure. But if you run an ad targeting certain demographics, and then get click-throughs on those ads can you then make the connection between users/demographics?

I also do find it interesting that app developers get access to more information than the paying customers themselves.

I'm at a loss to understand why people keep using the words "sell data" in this way. It's a weird way to use the word and inconsistent with how it's used in other situations.

Would you also say a pizza delivery driver sells their car? It's a resource that they use while providing a service but they retain possession of the car. Most people wouldn't describe that with the word "sell", so why does the definition shift when it comes to user data?

Stupid title, every free service sells user data.

False assertion.

I once operated a free service with 10Ks of users. When I sold it I refused to sell the user data. This dropped the value of the transaction to a fraction of the original offer.

So, maybe a lot of, but not every.

Bravo, good sir! The world needs more people like you. A friend asked why I was in computer science if I thought so many tech companies were doing evil things. My answer was that being a conscientious objector, I might be able to make a difference. Thank you for showing it can be done.

Not this one.

Touché.

Or they offer their service for free until they hit a critical mass of users, then start charging knowing x% will stick around

Most of the free apps on the App Store or Google Play, are probably selling your data left and right.

The little "My Digital Life" app (that just happened to exploited a bug in Facebook's platform at the time) is probably a drop in the pond. Who knows what other apps there are that's not even connected with Facebook that have been selling for all these years and are probably still doing so today?

OMG. How many times does Zuckerberg have to tell everyone they don't sell data before this old trope isn't pulled out?

Yes, they give it for free with the prism program.

Oh my god. Facebook did not sell data to Cambridge Analytica. Can we just all learn that please?

whataboutism

> In the wake of Facebook’s privacy debacle, Myspace Tom has emerged as an unlikely hero.

What? Why? They all sold data, they all still do. It's fucking Silicon Valleys Business Model to sell their users' data!

What the fuck is going on, why do people behave like they are on the Internet for the first time. We all know this. We all knew this - for years.

You've got to be completely oblivious of any facts to still think any player in the modern web is any good or intents to do act good.

I can't wait for IPFS and Ethereum to ripe. Those two things combined will create the truly decentralized web and all those big, data selling, companies can fuck off.

Can you please not rant like this on Hacker News? No matter how right you are, it damages the container here. We're trying for thoughtful conversation on this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

By the way, Hacker News doesn't sell users' data. Not that we're a big "player in the modern web" or anything, but still.

> In the wake of Facebook’s privacy debacle, Myspace Tom has emerged as an unlikely hero.

It's a joke.

Um... if there's a social network based on Ethereum you can just scrape all their user data and not need an equivalent of the Facebook third-party developer platform at all.

In an open platofrm you will always be able to abuse in some form or another. But what will end is the platform abusing your data. And that is the point here. If I want to sell my data (or hand it to someone, whatever) I will be able to do this. But there won't be any central party selling my data. And that is all we can ask for.

To be more specific, I could make my data available only to those who I allowed to see it by including their public key in my list of authorised keys. Therefor no scraping.

Anybody who you trust can then use My Cool Quiz App and let it read anything they can see about you, too.

Reality is not required to cooperate with coinwank.