[netcan]

I think the difference is more nuanced, arguable either way. Users effectively have some sort of agreement with Facebook where Facebook get their data. Realistically this is not something they are really aware of. They use a free service. Facebook collect and use the data in way they don't understand.

Do they have that agreement with ISPs? Phones companies? Supermarkets with facial recognition software to track shopping habits?

Since a lot of this data tuff is about aggregation, entities sharing data can have a lot of consequences. If you have Facebook, Whatsapp & email data for a significant number of people, then you have a lot of data about people that aren't signed up to any of those.

I think trying to categorize data privacy issues into "users agreed to." is pedantic in a way that gets away from the reality of what is going on. The hacking vs just recording may have legal importance, but I don't think

I've said this before, the digitization & aggregations of so much data is a bigger world changing issue. The Snowden/wikileaks affairs are a strange double example. The US agencies have their data stolen and spread around because it's "data." This data is largely information about how they steal data. You can't keep your secrets from them and they have trouble keeping their secrets data from you.

"Voluntary" or "consensual" mean different things in different contexts.