[stoshe]

An individual's data sharing with Facebook is less of the issue, here, though. You personally not using it doesn't prevent you from becoming the common thread that ties others together.

Just because I'm not on Facebook (I'm not), anyone that's allowed Facebook to see their own contacts, in their phone or email, has shown that they are or are not connected to me in some way. Without me actually ever even having an account with Facebook they can correlate this data from users to see who is likely to know one another by a shared connection to me. Just because my particular node on the relationship tree has more blanks than it would if I was a Facebook user does not mean I don't create a node at all.

My guess for this Facebook issue in particular is that the Doc potentially did absolutely nothing herself, but rather all of her patients had mail and phone contact lists that included her and that common thread along with the same geographic area was enough to trigger a recommended match. In other words, this was equally likely to happen even if the doctor never had a Facebook page of her own.

[Terr_]

I think we're in for a slow painful transition until people (in aggregate) intuitively "get" exactly how invasive and unfriendly data-correlation can be when you expose yourself -- and your friends -- to when you share seemingly-innocuous facts with our welcomed-digital-overlords.

[LeifCarrotson]

That doesn't seem to be very important. It's not the doctor who wants privacy.

The people who want privacy allowed Facebook to scrape their contact lists and monitor their locations. They then expected Facebook not to correlate this data with others who contact and visit the same doctor. Why not?

[radarsat1]

> They then expected Facebook not to correlate this data with others who contact and visit the same doctor. Why not?

Because that would be a dick move.

But clearly that is not enough to dissuade companies from doing this kind of thing, because they have no morals.

And that is the crux of the problem. They don't give a shit what would be considered "reasonable behaviour" for a human being, because they are just giant correlating machines with access to data they shouldn't have been given access to by people who don't know better.

At the end of the day, we are allowed to have reasonable expectations of others, including companies, so I take issue with any implication that they should have known better. We are allowed to have these reasonable expectations. And we will be constantly disappointed. But we should maintain them, I might even say that it is a duty to do so.

Saying "they should have known better" is giving up the fight prematurely. They shouldn't have to know better. They should be able to expect that their privacy (a right) will not be violated.

It is an ideal, not a reality, but it is something to work towards. One step might be to sue the hell out of Facebook for this.

[oldmanjay]

Suing Facebook for knowing something people told them ought to be interesting. Please tell HN all about it if you ever pull the trigger.

[syntheticnature]

Sherman, set the wayback machine for about 110 years ago...

The people who want meat didn't demand tours of the meatpacking factories. They then expected the meat they bought to not be unsanitary and diseased. Why not?