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Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access to Your Shadow Contact Information

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by Kashmir Hill,

Last week, I ran an ad on Facebook that was targeted at a computer science professor named Alan Mislove. Mislove studies how privacy works on social networks and had a theory that Facebook is letting advertisers reach users with contact information collected in surprising ways. I was helping him test the theory by targeting him in a way Facebook had previously told me wouldn’t work. I directed the ad to display to a Facebook account connected to the landline number for Alan Mislove’s office, a number Mislove has never provided to Facebook. He saw the ad within hours.

One of the many ways that ads get in front of your eyeballs on Facebook and Instagram is that the social networking giant lets an advertiser upload a list of phone numbers or email addresses it has on file; it will then put an ad in front of accounts associated with that contact information. A clothing retailer can put an ad for a dress in the Instagram feeds of women who have purchased from them before, a politician can place Facebook ads in front of anyone on his mailing list, or a casino can offer deals to the email addresses of people suspected of having a gambling addiction. Facebook calls this a “custom audience.”

You might assume that you could go to your Facebook profile and look at your “contact and basic info” page to see what email addresses and phone numbers are associated with your account, and thus what advertisers can use to target you. But as is so often the case with this highly efficient data-miner posing as a way to keep in contact with your friends, it’s going about it in a less transparent and more invasive way.

Facebook is not content to use the contact information you willingly put into your Facebook profile for advertising. It is also using contact information you handed over for security purposes and contact information you didn’t hand over at all, but that was collected from other people’s contact books, a hidden layer of details Facebook has about you that I’ve come to call “shadow contact information.” I managed to place an ad in front of Alan Mislove by targeting his shadow profile. This means that the junk email address that you hand over for discounts or for shady online shopping is likely associated with your account and being used to target you with ads.

Read more on: https://gizmodo.com/facebook-is-giving-advertisers-access-to-your-shadow-co-1828476051?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

Facebook moves 1.5bn users out of reach of new European privacy law

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Facebook has moved more than 1.5 billion users out of reach of European privacy law, despite a promise from Mark Zuckerberg to apply the “spirit” of the legislation globally.

In a tweak to its terms and conditions, Facebook is shifting the responsibility for all users outside the US, Canada and the EU from its international HQ in Ireland to its main offices in California. It means that those users will now be on a site governed by US law rather than Irish law.

The move is due to come into effect shortly before General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force in Europe on 25 May. Facebook is liable under GDPR for fines of up to 4% of its global turnover – around $1.6bn – if it breaks the new data protection rules.

The shift highlights the cautious phrasing Facebook has applied to its promises around GDPR. Earlier this month, when asked whether his company would promise GDPR protections to its users worldwide, Zuckerberg demurred. “We’re still nailing down details on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing,” he said.

A week later, during his hearings in front of the US Congress, Zuckerberg was again asked if he would promise that GDPR’s protections would apply to all Facebook users. His answer was affirmative – but only referred to GDPR “controls”, rather than “protections”. Worldwide, Facebook has rolled out a suite of tools to let users exercise their rights under GDPR, such as downloading and deleting data, and the company’s new consent-gathering controls are similarly universal.

Facebook told Reuters that “we apply the same privacy protections everywhere, regardless of whether your agreement is with Facebook Inc or Facebook Ireland”. It said the change was only carried out “because EU law requires specific language” in mandated privacy notices, which US law does not.

Privacy researcher Lukasz Olejnik disagreed, noting that the change carried large ramifications for the affected users. “Moving around one and a half billion users into other jurisdictions is not a simple copy-and-paste exercise,” he said

“This is a major and unprecedented change in the data privacy landscape. The change will amount to the reduction of privacy guarantees and the rights of users, with a number of ramifications, notably for for consent requirements. Users will clearly lose some existing rights, as US standards are lower than those in Europe.

“Data protection authorities from the countries of the affected users, such as New Zealand and Australia, may want to reassess this situation and analyse the situation. Even if their data privacy regulators are less rapid than those in Europe, this event is giving them a chance to act. Although it is unclear how active they will choose to be, the global privacy regulation landscape is changing, with countries in the world refining their approach. Europe is clearly on the forefront of this competition, but we should expect other countries to eventually catch up.”

Facebook also said the change did not carry tax implications. That means users will exist in a state of legal superposition: for tax purposes, Facebook will continue to book their revenue through Facebook’s Irish office, but for privacy protections, they will deal with the company’s headquarters in California.

The company follows other US multinationals in the switch. LinkedIn, for instance, is to move its own non-EU users to its US branch on 8 May. “We’ve simply streamlined the contract location to ensure all members understand the LinkedIn entity responsible for their personal data,” it told Reuters.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/19/facebook-moves-15bn-users-out-of-reach-of-new-european-privacy-law

Breaking News: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg says users would have to pay to opt out of all data-targeted ads

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Savannah Guthrie, left, interviews Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

Savannah Guthrie, left, interviews Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

In an interview with NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said the social network doesn’t currently offer the ability to opt out of advertising targeted to users based on the data they share with Facebook. “That would be a paid product,” Sandberg said.

Sandberg admitted that Facebook has a trust problem after revelations that Trump campaign firm Cambridge Analytica accessed the personal data of as many as 87 million users in the U.S. But she defended the company’s data-driven business model, saying: “Our service depends on your data. We don’t sell it. We don’t give it away.”

Read more on this story at NBCNews.com and watch the interview on “Today” Friday morning.

High-ranking critics of Facebook say it has exploited the interests of its users

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Facebook’s laser focus on profits and user growth has come at the expense of its users, according to one former Facebook manager who is now speaking out against the social platform.

In an interview with NBC News, other tech insiders also spoke out against the way Facebook has monetized the interests of its customers and allowed Russians and others to manipulate its feeds. “Facebook is a living, breathing crime scene for what happened in the 2016 election,” one former Google executive said.

Breaking News: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

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By MIKE ISAAC,

Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to focus on “meaningful interaction.” He spoke to New York Time about the sweeping changes being made to its News Feed.

SAN FRANCISCO —Facebook introduced sweeping changes to the kinds of posts, videos and photos that its more than two billion members will see most, saying on Thursday that it would prioritize what their friends and family share and comment on while de-emphasizing content from publishers and brands.

The shift is the most significant overhaul in years to Facebook’s News Feed, the cascading screen of content that people typically see when they log into the social network. Over the next few weeks, users will begin seeing fewer viral videos and news articles posted by media companies. Instead, Facebook will highlight posts between friends — for example, a photo of your dog, or a status update that many of your friends have commented on or liked.

The changes are intended to maximize the amount of content with “meaningful interaction” that people consume on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview. Facebook, he said, had closely studied what kinds of posts had stressed or harmed users. The social network wants to reduce what Mr. Zuckerberg called “passive content” — videos and articles that ask little more of the viewer than to sit back and watch or read — so that users’ time on the site was well spent.

“We want to make sure that our products are not just fun, but are good for people,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “We need to refocus the system.”

Thursday’s changes raise questions of whether people may end up seeing more content that reinforces their own ideologies if they end up frequently interacting with posts and videos that reflect the similar views of their friends or family. And bogus news may still spread — if a relative or friend posts a link with an inaccurate news article that is widely commented on, that post will still be prominently displayed.

The goal of the overhaul, ultimately, is for something less quantifiable that may be difficult to achieve: Facebook wants people to feel positive, rather than negative, after visiting.

“When people are engaging with people they’re close to, it’s more meaningful, more fulfilling,” said David Ginsberg, director of research at Facebook. “It’s good for your well-being.”

Facebook has been under fire for months over what it shows people and whether its site has negatively influenced millions of its users. The company has been dogged by questions about how its algorithms may have prioritized misleading news and misinformation in News Feeds, influencing the 2016 American presidential election as well as political discourse in many countries. Last year, Facebook disclosed that Russian agents had used the social network to spread divisive and inflammatory posts and ads to polarize the American electorate.

The repercussions from Facebook’s changes will almost certainly be far-reaching. Publishers, nonprofits, small business and many other groups rely on the social network to reach people, so de-emphasizing their posts will most likely hurt them. Adam Mosseri, vice president of product management at Facebook, who is responsible for running the News Feed, acknowledged that “there will be anxiety” from partners and publishers who often complain about the constantly shifting goal posts of what will be shown across the network.

The change may also work against Facebook’s immediate business interests. The company has long pushed users to spend more time on the social network. With different, less viral types of content surfacing more often,

After the 2016 election, for instance, Mr. Zuckerberg initially shrugged off qualms about Facebook’s effect on the outcome, even as outsiders pointed to the proliferation of fake news stories on the site that had attacked Hillary Clinton. Mr. Zuckerberg later said he had been too hasty and dismissive of the concerns. More recently, he began signaling that Facebook was rethinking what it shows people on the site.

Last week, he posted on Facebook about his goals for 2018, including “making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent” and adding that “this will be a serious year of self-improvement and I’m looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together.”

On Thursday, he said many of the discussions about Facebook’s responsibilities had prompted the company “to get a better handle on some of the negative things that could happen in the system.”

Facebook hack attacks: The threat is closer than you think, says UBC researcher

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People should be more concerned about their digital security, said Wali Usmani, the main author of a new study on Facebook snooping (Shutterstock / Photographee.eu)

‘People do trust each other way too much,’ said report’s author

By Jane Armstrong,

Facebook snooping is more widespread than you think and the main perpetrators aren’t unknown hackers.

They’re likely living in your house, according to a new study by University of British Columbia researchers.

More than one in five survey respondents — all Facebook users — had gained access to the accounts of friends, romantic partners or family members, said Wali Ahmed Usmani, the study’s author and a computer science master’s student.

he motivation ranged from curiosity to mistrust, said Usmani, adding he was shocked at how careless Facebook users are about securing their accounts.

“People are super uninformed about how they should be protecting their Facebook from hacking,” he said,.

His master’s thesis surveyed 1,308 U.S. adult Facebook users and found 24 per cent — or more than one in five — had snooped through the accounts of friends, partners or family members, using the victims’ own computers or cell phones.

Another 21 per cent were victims of hacking, the survey found.

The study, entitled Characterizing social insider attacks on Facebook, was a collaboration with researchers from the University of Lisbon.

Drunken breach

The hacking ranged from harmless pranks such as changing a friend’s status update to premeditated — and ethically dodgy — invasions of privacy,

In one example cited in the study, a woman got her partner so intoxicated he passed out. While he was unconscious, she used his fingers to unlock his phone, which was secured using touch identification.

She then admitted to snooping through his telephone messages.

Most breaches weren’t that elaborate. One person admitted to sneaking a peek at a partner’s phone while he was in the shower.

Many transgressions occurred because victims were logged onto their Facebook accounts and left their devices open for viewing.

In the study, many snoopers described their transgressions as pranks, but researchers found that prying eyes harmed relationships.

The breaches, if discovered, ends friendships and marriages, Usmani said,

Too much Facebook trust?

​Usmani said he launched the study because he was intrigued by the limitations of digital security. He was surprised to learn than many people share their passwords with family members or partners.

“People do trust each other way too much,” he said. “People are bad at risk assessment. They should be more careful.”

The study used Amazon Mechanical Turk, a survey platform commonly used by academics, to contact random respondents who lived in the United States. The survey was conducted between February and March 2016. Approximately 51 per cent of respondents were male, 49 per cent were female. They ranged in age from 20 to 60 but the majority were aged 20 to 29.

The study, entitled Characterizing social insider attacks on Facebook, was conducted along with researchers at the University of Lisbon.

It was peer reviewed and is to be published at at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May in Denver.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/facebook-attack-snoop-ubc-study-1.3942956?cmp=news-digests-british-columbia

11 things you should delete from your Facebook page

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Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty

Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty

by Narjas Zatat

(independent.co.uk) With over 1.49bn users, Facebook is one of the most powerful influencers in the world.

But with anything that powerful, you have to be careful how you deal with it.

There are certain pieces of information you might want to consider not having on there, like your home address, or where you went to school.

Here are 11 things you might want to delete:

1. Birthday

Your birthday is one part of an important puzzle which also includes your name and address, with which people can more easily access your bank account and personal details.

2. Phone number

The best case scenario here is acquiring a polite admirer. Worst case scenario? A stalker who calls you incessantly.

3. Most of your “friends”

Oxford psychology professor Robin Dunbar theorised that humans can maintain approximately 150 stable relationships.

After looking at 3,375 Facebook users, Dunbar found that of their Facebook friends, 4.1 were considered dependable, and 13.6 exhibited sympathy during an “emotional crisis.”

Getting rid of the deadwood can make for a healthier interaction with social media.

4. Photographs of your child/young family member

Victoria Nash, acting director of the Oxford Internet Institute, posed a really good question on this subject, and it’s to do with consent:

What type of information would children want to see about themselves online at a later date?

Previous generations never needed to consider this, but the advent of the internet and social media has given this question more importance.

5. While we’re at it, where your child/young family member goes to school

According to the NSPCC the number of recorded sexual offences has increased over the last year.

The report says:

Police recorded 36,429 sexual offences against children in the UK in 2013/2014… in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland police recorded the highest number of sexual offences against children in the past decade.

The last thing you want is to give an opportunity for a sex offender to find out where your child attends school.

6. Location services

Location services is only available on Android or iPhones.

In 2015 Techcrunch reported that over 500 million users accessed Facebook solely from their mobile, which means that the same number has the potential to broadcast their location online, and anyone who may or may not wish you harm now knows where are you.

7. Your manager

This one is a classic. Facebook is a social media platform, and to some degree your interactions ought to be relaxed.

But the CEO of your company can access your wall, he/she has access to every single one of your dodgy status updates – and yes that includes the one moaning about work.

Yes you can set your preferences to exclude your CEO, but isn’t that more hassle?

8. Stop tagging your location

People forget the fact that tagging your location at home actually gives away your address.

9. When and where you’re going for holiday

According to financial website This is Money, travelers who are burgled while they are on holiday may not get their insurance claim accepted if they posted their holiday plans on their social media accounts.

10. Your relationship status

If you want to celebrate the blossoming of a new relationship, don’t do it on Facebook.

It may not work out, and the consequent “in a relationship” to “single” status change will make you feel worse than you already do.

11. Credit card details

Never. This is never a good idea.

Turkey blocks Facebook, Twitter following deadly Ankara blast – reports

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56e5d496c3618899628b45cfTurkish authorities banned Twitter and Facebook after images spread on social media depicting the suicide car bombing that killed and injured dozens in the Turkish capital of Ankara, local broadcasters reported.

Turkey’s telecommunications authority, TIB, blocked access to social media after a court-ordered ban was imposed, Turkish NTV and CNN Turk reported.

Access to Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other sites has been blocked because images showing victims of the tragedy were being shared on those platforms, according to the court.

While Turkey blocks Kurdish websites, as Twitter and Facebook “Will Barazani Block Oil to Turkey”?

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Erdogan-block-twitterAs Turkish fighter jets bombed the  Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Turkey blocked number of Kurdish news websites and many users had difficulty in accessing Twitter and Facebook for an unspecified reason.

The decision imposed early July 25 by Turkey’s Telecommunications Directorate (TİB), a government-controlled Internet watchdog, targeted news websites based not only in Turkey, but also in northern Iraq.

Blocked websites include Rudaw, BasNews, DİHA, ANHA, Özgür Gündem newspaper, Yüksekova Haber, Sendika.org and RojNews. When trying to access one of the websites, a user from Turkey can only see a message that the TİB blocked it as an “administrative measure.”

Turkey threatens to ban Twitter, Facebook again

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187122Turkish authorities have warned that all websites publishing records allegedly related to Syrian-bound trucks belonging to the Turkish intelligence agency that were stopped by a prosecutor last year will be banned, presaging a possible new ban on Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter has quickly removed the content, while many other websites have not yet complied, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

On Jan 2, 2014, two Syria-bound trucks belonging to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) were stopped by a prosecutor who sought to have the gendarmerie search the vehicles. The following month, a Turkish court issued a ban on the publication of news related to the incident.

A number of documents were leaked online on Jan 13 this year. The proceedings related to the search allegedly show that arms belonging to MİT were found in the trucks. Speculation has been rife that the arms were destined for jihadists in Syria.

Turkish officials, now equipped with the authority to block websites even without a court ruling, warned that the gag order would be strictly imposed on the Internet. Any website, including Facebook and Twitter, will be blocked if they do not remove the leaked documents.

Twitter quickly withheld the sanctioned content Wednesday, Jan 14, dodging the possible Turkish ban. Facebook, on the other hand, has not yet complied with the decision, Turkish authorities said, noting that the talks were continuing.

“There are several court decisions against the websites that published the signed proceedings,” a Turkish official told daily Hürriyet, stressing that the “procedure is ongoing.”

Turkey blocked access to Twitter, hours after then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to close down the social media platform in March 2014.

YouTube was banned in Turkey the same month, after a top-secret government meeting on Syria was leaked allegedly depicting government officials discussing a possible false-flag operation on Turkey in an effort to drag Turkey into Syria’s war.

The Constitutional Court unblocked Twitter on April 2, 2014, and YouTube on May 29, 2014, citing freedom of expression, but the ruling drew the ire of the government.

Related links:

Hurriyet Daily News. Turkey moves to ban Twitter, Facebook again