What can we do about it? I realize this is probably not answerable in this thread but I find myself asking this question more frequently lately and I still cannot answer it.

would be happy to see this discussion split into an Ask HN: or other, I think this topic should be debated quite a bit more than it is with the goal of attaining real results on fixing these issues.

Simple: delete your Facebook account. Many of us already have. Nothing will send a stronger message than people doing this en masse. Even if they don't get the message or don't care, it's the only way to protect yourself from their never-ending privacy violations.

This. Though I will say, in my opinion tech companies are more or less wild animals we pretend are domesticated.

Nothing is free.

Facebook continues to do good for people. Twitter as well. These are invaluable communication channels for many people.

I imagine this problem will get fixed about the same time my physical spam mail stops arriving. I'm not holding my breath, given that I can _say_ something to my wife in the privacy of our own home and get a cold call or physical mailing about it a few weeks later.

I try to encourage people to pay for the services they believe in. Whether you love or hate Microsoft for $6.99/mo you can get Office, (decently private) email, cloud storage, and Skype. Hate Skype? Don't blame you but from there you can get a phone number that you can give out and keep your personal number just for family/emergencies.

This sends a powerful message to folks trying to build a better mouse trap. It is _very_ hard to produce a free service that competes with these folks but if we show we're willing to pay for privacy then maybe we'll start to see competitive innovation in that space again.

Now that I have a family it inspires rage that my phone rings constantly from spammers and I might ignore a call that's time sensitive and important.

> Whether you love or hate Microsoft for $6.99/mo you can get Office, (decently private) email, cloud storage, and Skype. Hate Skype? Don't blame you but from there you can get a phone number that you can give out and keep your personal number just for family/emergencies.

Microsoft compromises the security and privacy of all of their online services, including Skype, Outlook.com, and Hotmail: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

A much better alternative is to give your money to independent telephony providers that run on, and support, Free Software: https://jmp.chat/

I deleted facebook in 2008, this article discusses shadow profiles.... I suspect that more people deleting facebook and moving to facebook owned subsidiaries, or anything that is centrally owned and not federated will not solve the problem. even then there will be new mining techniques with their own set of challenges.

unfortunately I do not think that more people doing that will solve the root of the problem... only try to treat a symptom.

It will be a part of the solution even if it won't solve the problem on its own.

If enough people decide to turn their backs on FB (or any other company doing things like this), there will be a market for better solutions.

It needs time.

> Simple: delete your Facebook account. Many of us already have. Nothing will send a stronger message than people doing this en masse. Even if they don't get the message or don't care, it's the only way to protect yourself from their never-ending privacy violations.

And if you're not willing to delete your account just yet, switch your profile pic and cover photo to messages saying you're planning on using Facebook less or eventually deleting your account.

If enough people do that, it adds a social element to the exodus. Just deleting you account makes it poof out of existence without a sound, and most of your FB friends won't even notice.

That's a good point. When the only option to make your opinion known is to quit, you've reached a bad place.

Unfortunately, it seems like that's becoming more and more common these days.

Facebook will still harvest your personal information to profit from. They'll just do without your involvement. They'll get it from anyone or anything you've ever revealed information about yourself to.

If you're a EU resident, use GDPR early and often on them.

Australia needs something like the GDPR, can't happen soon enough. I enjoyed the wild west days of IT, but I think now companies are enjoying it a bit too much.

It doesn't help that legislators wouldn't have the foggiest clue about some of these issues^, so there's no impetus from the legal community or political arena to make changes, while nefarious companies are doing whatever the hell they like.

I deleted FB years ago, and this infuriates me to know they might still be trying to sell my information based on contacts and what I share with them.

^ Actually, they've recently tried to pretend they are above the law of mathematics, so...

I wish it were that simple. In Brazil, Whatsapp has effectively replaced SMS as the standard form of communication.

Same thing we are currently doing about it. Keep talking.

FB and similar surveillance shops thrive because people let them. People let them, primarily, because humans instinctually follow a safety-in-numbers model - FB just couldn't be that bad, or someone would have done something about it. That is likely the most clever/evil hack - FB flips this instinct on its head.

So keep telling people the truth about FB. It is a tacky AOL 2.0 panopticon optimized to manipulate you in the name of your friends and family. The company routinely lies about their practices, the CEO gives all appearances of being an untrustworthy weasel, and they're more interested in growth than the damage (up to and including facilitating mob violence!) they're doing.

And: the net is a big place. FB is a big corner of it, but unless you'd also think living inside a Walmart is a great idea, there's a lot out there that you're missing.

It took years, but I've gotten some family members to stop using them.

What are some crazy things you've seen?

Not related to private data but I've seen a bank shadow fund a project to get the mortgage review packages of a competitor to run through their models and test them out, also giving this one bank all the data on the mortgage packages and the scores. A really big bank did this to two others BIG lenders (one lender directly related to the federal government). We were instructed to turn a blind eye and the business model was exfiltrating info to a different lending institution while the auspice is we were only building a product as a service. My personal opinion is ALL your data is being sold. Every single bit that can be collected will be sold with no protections, regulations.

> My personal opinion is ALL your data is being sold. Every single bit that can be collected will be sold with no protections, regulations.

I don't understand -- especially in this crowd -- how this is even a question, at this point, nor why anything related to this fact even warrants discussion any more, given the knowable ubiquity of the practice. I guess the only thing left is figuring out a novel way to capitalize on it, like the Gold Rush.

You don't need his crazy stories, really. All you need to do is accept that Facebook isn't behaving exceptionally poorly, this is industry standard. Lo and behold - the entire sector is suddenly a cesspool of disrespect and money grabbing at the cost of your data, your privacy, anything they will be able to get away with. And they can get away with a lot, because you are not allowed to talk when you work anywhere. On pain of basically having your life ruined.

》Facebook isn't behaving exceptionally poorly

I think we are at an impasse. Most in the know do not share this opinion.

The behaviour is poor, yes. But if you view it among it's peers it's not at all poor, it's normal. That that normal is actually "exceptionally poor" might be true, but that's not really the point I was trying to make. On that I think we agree.

If you're implying that "most in the know" think FB is much worse than competitors or even other IT companies, we do indeed disagree. Sadly that is not something we can argue here, because if you are in the know you cannot share examples :)

Can you elaborate on what their opinion is about Fb and other companies?

@da02 asked @spr1ted for some examples and you come in saying he's crazy and deny that examples are needed?

He wasn't calling anyone crazy. The remark about "his crazy stories" was meant to be: "his stories on crazy (ie evil, corrupt) practices."

They didn't call the gp crazy. They labelled the stories crazy, which is precisely how the poster described them:

>things i have see flying by are crazy