Facebook doesn’t need to sell your data. It has been giving it away free for years.

LASER_oneXM

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Feb 4, 2016
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Mark Zuckerberg’s idealistic vision for Facebook has come back to haunt the company.

Facebook hasn’t been selling your data, folks. Instead, it’s been giving it away free — and for a long time, that was part of the plan.

The New York Times published another long and damning investigation into the social giant’s data practices late Tuesday. That story, which was based on hundreds of documents reviewed by the Times, focused on Facebook’s extensive data partnerships with some of the world’s largest tech companies, like Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Microsoft.

“Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages,” the New York Times reported. “The social network permitted Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, and it let Yahoo view streams of friends’ posts as recently as this summer.”
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

I still use Facebook, but with an assumed name everyone I am friends with knows is me. Also I have Firefox w/Facebook Container installed with the only purpose to browse Facebook when needed. Nothing personal or relevant is on Facebook for me. I also do not have it installed on my mobile devices and have the background services disabled.

However after this, I don't even feel like having that account any longer.
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

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DeepWeb

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That is what I also do, so simple, so efficient, and with doing a small tour of the privacy settings, you can secure your account quite well.
That is if you assume they track you based on your real name and that they honor your privacy settings...
 
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Deleted member 178

That is if you assume they track you based on your real name and that they honor your privacy settings...
That is the whole point of not using your real name and not linking it to your real picture on FB and other social medias.

FB or people tracking umbra activities is negligeable, that will eventually only impact my virtual life which I can reset via another nickname.

FB or people tracking my life via my real name activity is something else because you can't reset it and start over with a clean slate.
 
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TairikuOkami

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Even if you have one, anyone can create a fake account impersonating you.
Not if you befriend your friends. Besides FB validates some accounts, when you upload your ID, but it is gonna take some time to validate all.
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

Umbra is 100% correct in that 'so what' they don't honor your privacy settings and real name. Even if they do not they have other hurdles to surpass, such as the fact your name is fake, your photos are fake, your activity is largely irrelevant. Granted they could in theory, extrapolate your identity through your contacts, but without correlating information they would be mostly blind.

As Umbra notes, once you start getting your real identity locked onto it's hard to shake them off and you often can't back off of it. That's where it can come back to haunt you. I've had to spend time on redaction of some extraneous real data out there in the last few months due to some employment changes and it wasn't fun, and required legal assistance. It's much easier to prevent it then it is to roll it back!

PS: The very second FB, or any social media requires a photo ID upload is the day I stop using them for good. Or, I will be forced to get a forged physical photo ID. :cool: I really hate it when corporations think they are more intelligent than I am. :p
 
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Deleted member 178

Not if you befriend your friends. Besides FB validates some accounts, when you upload your ID, but it is gonna take some time to validate all.
You can even if someone already befriends them, it is called social engineering, people on FB gives plenty of details to works with. I tried and succeeded, i wont give details how to.

Uploading my ID to Facebook? No way.
 
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Deleted member 178

Being anonymous is not by hiding, it is by making so much "noise" that the real datas are imperceptible.
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

True story: Someone I know was looking for a high end condo to rent. He found one, it was perfect, he was ready to sign the lease. Then they asked for access to his social media accounts before finalization. That is, they opened a laptop, slid it over and asked him to login to them in front of them so they could go through them briefly.

True story: Someone else I know was applying for a fairly nice position in IT. It was pretty clear during the interviews they had already done significant online searches about the person because during the interview they questioned him about some posts on social media.

Final true story, and this is the worst one IMO.

During the process of hiring they were unable to pull much data on this specific person. So they made this person sign a document for a full background search including: Criminal History, Financial History and tada - social media and online history. This firm literally had a contract with a data mining firm to pull some pretty intrusive data on potential new hires.

Moral of the story is - if you are wise, you will start to handle this stuff before it's too late. I've been raising my kids to have extreme online privacy caution and to use assumed names everywhere. To date, it's been a success for the most part, especially with my younger kids who have no searchable data online despite being online everyday. It may sound paranoid, but the above stories should illustrate why this is critical. Also, since we know firms like Fakebook are already selling you out, what more motivation do you need??
 

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