[jellicle]

So the penalty for ongoing repeated lies and fraud is....

nothing. Zero. The FTC has investigated, and the settlement is zero money and zero penalties. Not one dollar. Whew! I'm glad they were punished! They won't do THAT again!

The U.S. is really in late-stage empire breakdown. I don't think there is any significant enforcement of any laws whatsoever against companies and people that are reasonably well connected. The only thing keeping the society from total breakdown is inertia.

[DanielStraight]

So... quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Perhaps the problem isn't that there's no one to watch the watchmen, but that we're over-reliant on watchmen.

You don't need the FTC to keep Facebook from sharing your private information.

I'm not saying Facebook did nothing wrong, and I'm not saying the FTC is doing nothing wrong now. I'm saying that none of it matters if you delete your own account.

You don't need to worry about who's watching the watchmen when you watch out for yourself. (Can anyone translate that to Latin?)

[jellicle]

Look, here's the FTC's mandate:

"Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful."

The FTC exists to enforce that. Now, it's fashionable nowadays for the ill-informed to insist that government is worthless, but in fact this law and similar ones underly every aspect of American society and you owe everything to have to their existence. Without government anti-fraud efforts, commerce does not exist, full stop.

Private enterprise are the applications. Government is the operating system.

But let's take another look at your point: your argument is that I should right now go and delete my account a couple years ago because I know today that Facebook was lying a couple years ago. For everyone who has a time machine, that is a good remedy - it will solve the problem for those people admirably. For those that don't, we need effective government enforcement of anti-fraud laws.

[DanielStraight]

My argument is that Facebook has a history of mishandling privacy.

And further that users have been, at least on some level, aware of it.

I was on Facebook when they first implemented the news feed and got everyone upset. They've since introduced dozens of features that have gotten everyone upset (or at least a sizable enough minority to be noticeable). They make it clear that ads are targeted based on your personal information. They make privacy settings complicated. They continuously push you to supply more information, connect with more people, use Facebook for more things. They continuously make more things public by default, and add more features that make personal information discoverable (such as tagging in images).

If they weren't suspicious, they wouldn't have been investigated in the first place.

I'm not talking about a time machine. But let me observe a few things:

- I deleted my account a year ago (and knew I wanted to before that) without the FTC investigating anything. Because Facebook was clearly suspicious.

- You still have an account today even though you know about Facebook's lies today. You don't need a time machine to make changes today.

My argument is this:

Fraud protection is extremely important. There are many cases where there is no suspicion of fraud, no source of information about possible fraud, and consumers get taken advantage of. For example, people get taken advantage of by phishing every day.

But if you fall victim to increasingly bad phishing attacks from the same company over the course of years, you aren't paying attention. You are relying on watchmen to protect you and not watching out for yourself.

I am not blaming the victim. I am trying to empower the victim. Everyone who is reading this and still has a Facebook account knows that Facebook will outright lie about privacy in order to make more money from advertisers. They are still guilty of their actions if you get fooled again, but you don't have to get fooled again.

My argument is "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

[keenerd]

I don't know Latin, but I can play around with google translate! Best I got was

Noli loqui et non servant custodibus

or "Watch your mouth instead of the watchmen".

I guess this was a very complex way of disagreeing with you that "none of it matters".

[missing_cipher]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3...

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase traditionally attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–8), which is literally translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?" Also sometimes rendered as "Who watches the watchmen?""

[keenerd]

I dare say you missed the point. Were you replying to the wrong thread?

[tokenadult]

On what legal basis would you expect a financial penalty for a free, voluntary-participation online service that did the things that the FTC found that Facebook did? What does the law on the subject give the FTC authority to do?

[sunchild]

The FTC seems to think that Facebook lured consumers in by misrepresenting how it uses consumer personal information. That would be a violation of the FTC Act.

[_delirium]

They knowingly lied to their customers, if these allegations are true.

[ceejayoz]

Facebook users are not Facebook's customers.

[rhizome]

OK, Sheldon. Facebook knowingly lied to people subject to their privacy policy, TOU and TOS (where applicable).

[FaceKicker]

Is anyone else really tired of reading this "you're not the customer, you're the product" platitude every day, especially in contexts like here where it's totally irrelevant? Yes, we get it, Facebook isn't directly making money off their users.

[anigbrowl]

Yes, but apparently people need constant reminders Facebook users are essentially getting a service for free, so they're not consumers in the same sense as someone who pays for a service and is dissatisfied by the treatment hey receive at the hands of the vendor.

[rhizome]

The law has long been castrated on your points. The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).

[tbrownaw]

The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).

Trying to apply rules made for physical items (if I take it you don't have it any more) to things that act completely differently is a really bad idea.

[rhizome]

Humans are smart, they don't have to use the exact same laws. Like I implied, the laws don't actually exist in the US.

Would it make a difference if I had said "something akin" to personal information as property? I mean, we're reading this story, so personal information has currency in some way, right? Seems to me that with some political will that the laws can be nudged further in favor of the user.

[dreamdu5t]

You choose to divulge any information you consider to be private. Absent an actual formal agreement contingent upon giving that information (which an internal policy is most definitely not), I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me.

Unless you're going to argue that you own anything you happen to know, even after other people know it? Unless you're going to argue that a posted policy on a free website constitutes a binding agreement?

[rhizome]

I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me.

If that was true in all cases, the story we're commenting on wouldn't exist.

[dreamdu5t]

How is that? Please explain how I am obligated to restrict information people freely share with me?

[rhizome]

In your example, in this context, there would be no privacy violation possible.

[jellicle]

The FTC Act: "Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful."

The FTC is empowered to enforce that with a variety of penalties, including extensive fines.

[anigbrowl]

And how much did you pay Facebook for the privilege of using their service?

[daenz]

> The only thing keeping the society from total breakdown is inertia.

I know, society is breaking down, kids are getting more disrespectful, things are more expensive, the end of the world is upon us, etc :) You taking your lifetime to come to a realization about the state of the world does not make the realization less true before you had it. It's a memory glitch. Jump back 100 years, it's the same shit.

[JonnieCache]

>Jump back 100 years, it's the same shit.

Yep. Jump back 100 years, and you're in the breakdown of the British empire. And look what we became, a pointless, miserable lame-duck nation utterly yoked to the next empire that rose after us, the USA.

Now you guys are gonna be yoked to the next empire, China.

Have fun with that!

I'll maybe catch you on a beach in Brazil, where hopefully things will be cool. Fingers crossed.

[rhizome]

The movie "Gosford Park" is a well-covered instance of this state of affairs.

[anigbrowl]

Yep. Jump back 100 years, and you're in the breakdown of the British empire.

You're off by several decades and two world wars. The British Empire was in full bloom in 1911, and there was little unrest in any of its colonies, never mind at home.

[mahyarm]

Throughout the entire history of the US, you can dig up these kind of antics, what makes this different from those antics that signals that this points to 'late-stage empire breakdown'?

[mgummelt]

Care to fill in the logical leap from your second to third lines?

[JonnieCache]

I think that third line was probably more of an "impotent howl into the void in futile pursuit of catharsis" kind of comment than an "attempting to advance the cause of mutual human understanding" kind of comment.

In this day and age I think we can let it slide.

[freehunter]

Possibly something like "Corporations can get away with anything because they run the country and there's no turning back."

Just a guess.

[dreamdu5t]

Facebook didn't break the law. So I'm not sure what people mean when they say "get away with anything."

[jellicle]

The FTC disagrees with you. But maybe you know better?

[spindritf]

I'm not American but isn't that court's decision to make, not FTC's or dreamdu5t's? Also, wouldn't Facebook's actions rather constitute a breach of contract with their users? Which would mean that users can sue regardless of FTC's decisions?

[pasbesoin]

You are omitting the chunk of "make-work" that the FTC just secured for itself.

Mind you, I'm not arguing for a lack of regulation. Rather, that this is what much regulation seems to be reduced to, these days. Sadly.

[dreamdu5t]

Privacy policies are not binding agreements or contracts. Facebook didn't lie. They simply don't have to follow their privacy policy exactly, since it's not a binding agreement.

[Bud]

No. They lied.

The fact that there was, according to you, no binding contract, has no bearing on the question of whether they lied or not. They did lie. Case closed.

[dreamdu5t]

Even if you accept it was a lie, it's not fraud.

Facebook "lies" like Subway "lies" about losing weight by eating there.

You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.

[Bud]

You're dodging the question of whether it is a lie, which is unsurprising. I say again: Facebook lied.

You didn't mention fraud, and I made no comment on fraud. I said they lied. They did.

As for the clumsy smokescreen analogy about Subway, allow me to point out the obvious:

Facebook made promises to users about how FACEBOOK would handle the personal property of said users. These are concrete, easily-definable promises...the kind which are easy to analyze to see if the promise was kept.

It wasn't kept. Furthermore, as the FTC documented in plain English, there was a pattern of behavior, over and over again, that shows any reasonable person that not only did Facebook lie, they lied with prior intent. They never had any intention of keeping those promises and they broke them in the most egregious ways possible.

By contrast, when Subway implies that customers can lose weight by eating certain foods there, they are, obviously, making no promises about how Subway will behave in the future, except an implied promise to be honest about how many calories are in their food (required by law), and to provide some lo-cal options (which they do).

Really bad analogy, in every way.

[anigbrowl]

You're dodging the question of whether it is a lie, which is unsurprising. I say again: Facebook lied.

Yeah, but lying to people isn't a crime. Defrauding them is, but lies and fraud are quite different things.

[rooshdi]

You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.

Yes, but Facebook disclosed personal information which people expected to remain private. Your Subway analogy doesn't cut it because Subway is trusted to disclose information, whereas Facebook is trusted to enclose it.

Even if you accept it was a lie, it's not fraud.

From the dictionary:

"Fraud: Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain."

From the FTC report:

"Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did."

If that isn't fraud, I don't know what is.

[_delirium]

If Subway lied in an objectively verifiable manner (as opposed to on a subjective/gray-area claim), they'd also be breaking the law. For example, if they told their customers that a certain sandwich had 6 oz of meat, and it in fact had 5 oz of meat, that wouldn't be legal. If they told their customers that their credit card transaction data was not being resold, and in fact it was, that wouldn't be legal. Facebook is alleged to have done the latter, among other things.

[Silhouette]

> You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.

Fortunately, the law in many countries does not permit such one-sided terms.

[rhizome]

Facebook "lies" like Subway "lies" about losing weight by eating there.

Jared Fogle did lose weight eating at Subway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Fogle#Subway_campaign

[sunchild]

What you said is incorrect. They do need to follow their privacy policies. It is a legal requirement.

Your comment confuses basic contract legal principles with privacy rules. This isn't a contract matter; it's a matter of public policy.

You can get started learning why here: http://business.ftc.gov/legal-resources/29/35

[chollida1]

No that is a lie.

If I tell you I'll pick you up at 6 and have no intention of doing it, that's a lie. It's not illegal but it is a lie.

[rooshdi]

Legality != Morality