[harry8]

I did, more than a decade ago. Do you think they stopped? How would I know there is no shadow profile being constantly updated?

It's apparently not my data and privacy and I have no say in it at all when someone uploads their goddamn contact list to these frickin' crooks. Is that your understanding too?

So This solution is not a solution. This solution only works if we stop other people from using it. How's that going to work? Well it isn't.

Cool? Now welcome to the "what regulation is appropriate" debate because this is clearly an example of market failure, same as national defence, same as national parks, same as pollution, same as any other. The sooner we treat "...using computers" exactly the same as any other industry the better. This is nuts.

[freeflight]

> It's apparently not my data and privacy and I have no say in it at all when someone uploads their goddamn contact list to these frickin' crooks.

Afaik that's actually the legal situation in the US due to the third-party doctrine [0]. It's one of the ways government mass surveillance has been "legalized" without having to comply with the Fourth Amendment.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

[dropin685]

> This solution is not a solution.

No, not a complete solution, but it's a step in the right direction. One of the reasons advertisers as well as ordinary users come to FB is to be in contact with you -- to have your attention. Stop using FB and you take that away. FB ends up with less of an audience with which to entice others.

[harry8]

There's enough users remaining that your shadow profile still has value and facebook march on.

This solution is not a solution. Definitely do it, and you'll really enjoy doing it too - life improves! Just don't think it's any kind of solution to any of the systemic problems that are being discussed because it isn't. Not even a partial solution. Not even a meaningful start of one.

[travisporter]

But if my Facebook profile is deactivated or deleted or whatever, and I’m no longer active, how can they still have information about me? I had about 300 “friends” on there but no one really tagged or mentioned me or anything.

[biblytens]

What are you claiming is the market failure here?

[harry8]

Market Failure [1] is the definition in economics for this situation.

There is a non-price, non-market mechanism imposing a cost upon us. Just like if your neighbour at the restaurant lights up a cigarette and you hate that and it spoils your meal. You can't very well "give up smoking" to fix that. Just like any public good - eg national defence, it can't be done by a free market alone and so never is. Just like if a factory opens and pollutes a river killing all the fish, the fisherman can't stop transacting with the factory to get their livelihoods back. Just like any natural monopoly - eg piped drinking water supply and distribution to buildings in a city which is heavily regulated everywhere on earth, (often really badly, sure) because you can't change providers at will and you can't do a startup and get into that market. Proprety rights and enforcement - we don't do private courts and police as a rule and laws are not supposed to be for sale to the highest bidder.

Facebook have my data, they use it, without my consent and I have no way of taking my business elsewhere to remedy that. This is one of the many costs facebook impose on all of us. These are costs that not all of us feel we want to bare or feel there is a benefit from it. Us stopping using facebook does not fix that cost, we continue to incur it. That meets the textbook definition of "market failure".

Just by the by, this is not simply "my claim", this is the normal, definition of market failure in any economics textbook and regardless of political leaning. Whether you think that this market failure is an important one or not certainly can be debated. Eg it's market failure if I don't like the color my neigbor paints their front door - the response to which is usually "so what, get over it." You can, and facebook do, make that kind of argument here. Facebook PR will avoid "market failure" as it sounds somehow worse than a technical description of the situation to much of the public, as it does perhas to yourself. But there's not much doubt about it (at least as far as I'm aware), that it meets that usual, and well understood defininition among ecomomists.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure

[archie2]

> Just like if your neighbour at the restaurant lights up a cigarette and you hate that and it spoils your meal. You can't very well "give up smoking" to fix that.

But you can go to another restaurant that doesn't allow smoking. If enough people don't like having smokers around that those restaurants goes out of business, then eventually you will see a shift in the market of available restaurants with non-smoking sections.