[kuzmin]

If you read the case decision, specifically paragraphs 137 - 140 it becomes even more ridiculous: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m721...

This quote sticks out as a bit of an exaggeration regarding the difficulty of this operation:

"Notably, integration of WhatsApp's and Facebook's networks would require matching WhatsApp users' profiles with their profiles on Facebook (or vice versa). This would be complicated without the users' involvement since Facebook and WhatsApp use different unique user identifiers: Facebook ID and mobile phone number, respectively."

However, after reading this I feel like the decision focused mostly on the possibility of Facebook merging WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger into a unified communications platform. This feels different to me than merging user-ids over platforms to improve targeted ads. But IANAL, and there are probably documents that I have missed.

[TeMPOraL]

The quote basically says that this task is complicated because it requires an equivalent of a SQL one-liner that any CS undergrad should be able to write. Where would Facebook/WhatsApp find experts that good?

[evgen]

Facebook uids based on email address, WhatsApp on phone number. Please show me the SQL one-liner to join those tables...

[parthdesai]

Select * from fb_users join wp_users on wp_users.id = fb_users.phone_number

A really basic query that will give you all the fb users who have listed their phone number.

Also i just realized while typing this, i think fb started allowing logging in using your phone number around the time they bought whatsapp. So even the profiles that didn't give their phone number to fb, they could get it via this logging system. ( I guess i was a victim of that)

[Matthias247]

I think more than half of the FB users also use the app or facebook messenger, which gives them access to their phone number through app permissons alone. Additionally they have access to the contact lists of both apps and can correlate names and phone numbers from there. Even if someone doesn't use the FB app and hasn't listed his phone number in FB - if any friend has him as contact in FB and Whatsapp it's quite trivial to match the IDs.

[TeMPOraL]

Exactly what I had in mind.

You could also complement it with phone numbers of people with 2FA enabled.

[evgen]

FB does not require phone numbers so you are just decorating with data that most users do not provide to FB. Not the same thing.

Not saying FB could not join the tables given how much data they have, but it is not nearly as simple as this.

[parthdesai]

And that's why i said users who have listed their phone number.

They can get phone number from users who use their phone number to log in but not have listed it in their profile (me), people who have enabled 2FA or from messenger. It's just a simple sql join. Ofcourse not at FB scale but this is me thinking about this problem for 10 seconds and also i'm in probably not even as intelligent as the dumbest guy working at fb.

[pzh]

And then there are people who just use a Google Voice number on Whatsapp instead of a real phone number, and many don't even have a phone number listed on Facebook. I'm actually surprised that anybody would give their real phone number to Facebook, Whatsapp, or any of the other "social networks"...

[tw04]

>with data that most users do not provide to FB.

And you're basing this on... what? Facebook nags you EVERY TIME you login for your phone number. EVERY TIME. I can tell you every last one of my friends who is non-technical has put in their phone number simply to get rid of the nag message. While my evidence is anecdotal, it flies in the face of yours. So I assume you have a citation for your "most users" comment.

[parthdesai]

So i did some search. Facebook app is installed 1 billion - 5 billion times on android alone. Facebook app has access to your contact card, your contacts and bunch of other stuff. Now let's say there are 20% of people who review these permissions and don't give fb access to everything. Even with that it leaves ~800 million apps with access to phone numbers. And this is Android alone.

I would be pretty surprised if evgen had same views if he wasn't working at fb.

[kuzmin]

Yeah, this would be really simple, and even without this, I do not believe that fingerprinting the phones and using that as an ID to join identities is that complex these days?

[hobarrera]

> This would be complicated without the users' involvement since Facebook and WhatsApp use different unique user identifiers: Facebook ID and mobile phone number, respectively.

For some time now, facebook has been requiring a phone number to register. In some cases, they don't ask for one until you try to add people, or something alike. If you use Facebook Messenger (with no facebook account), you can sign up using ONLY you phone number.

This was just a plain lie.